Rebound
by Eideann
Summary: Following his reluctant betrayal and subsequent loss of Jeanne Benoit, Agent Tony DiNozzo rebounds into a relationship that just might be the end of him – unless Agent Gibbs can stop it. Not for the squeamish. M for adult themes and sexual content.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

Tony focused hard on the cold case he was reviewing. They were between cases, and he needed something a little more absorbing than one of his stupid video games. Besides, Gibbs was at his desk, which made playing games a little more risky than if he was, say, up in MTAC.

"Tony, do you have the Hanson file?" McGee asked.

"Yeah, Probie," Tony said without looking. It was in his pile of cold cases.

"Can I have it, please?" Tony could almost hear the rolled eyes in McGee's tone.

Tony picked up the file and held it out, still gazing at the computer screen as he scrolled through the evidence photos of a murder they'd failed to solve a couple years back. There was something there that he was missing, and it was driving him nuts.

"DiNozzo!" Gibbs snapped, and Tony looked up, startled. Gibbs was glaring at him. "Conference room! Now!"

Tony jumped up, concealing a wince as a variety of aches and pains reminded him of their existence. He handed the file to McGee, giving the other agent a puzzled look. "What'd I do?" he mouthed at him. McGee shrugged, eyes wide. He turned to Ziva who shook her head as well.

"DiNozzo!"

"Coming, Boss!" DiNozzo called as he hurried across the squad room into the elevator. At this point, other teams were looking at them curiously. He pretended not to notice as the elevator doors shut. It had barely started moving when Gibbs slapped the switch that brought it to a halt. Tony had no idea what to expect when Gibbs turned towards him, anger snapping in his blue eyes.

"Roll up your sleeves," he ordered.

"What?" Tony said, staring at him. He couldn't know. How could he know?

Gibbs raised his eyebrows with more than a hint of annoyance. "Roll up your sleeves, DiNozzo!"

Tony crossed his arms and shook his head, trying not to reveal the tension that filled him at that request. "Come on, Boss, why would you want me to –"

"Damn it, DiNozzo, roll up your sleeves!"

Clenching his teeth, Tony reached down and unbuttoned the cuff of his right sleeve and pushed it up to reveal a series of black and red bruises, some of which had very recognizable shapes. "There, satisfied?" he asked, unable to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.

Gibbs didn't even seem to notice his tone. "The other arm?"

Tony scowled and didn't move. "It's the same, Boss."

"What happened, DiNozzo? And don't tell me you ran into a door. That won't cut it this time."

Tony grimaced and looked away. He hadn't expected there to be another incident, so he had passed off the shiner as humorously as he could. "It's personal, Boss," he said shortly, hoping that Gibbs would leave it.

"Personal, DiNozzo?" Gibbs asked, and then he waited in his patented interrogation style. Tony wondered if he dared reach across and flip the switch to make the elevator start up again. On the whole, he thought not, but when Gibbs started the elevator going himself, he heaved a sigh of relief. Mostly. A small, irrational part of him was disappointed that Gibbs wasn't pursuing it. Then he noticed which button Gibbs had pushed.

"Autopsy?" he ventured, hoping there was a work-related reason for the destination.

"You're going to let Ducky take a look at you," Gibbs said.

"No way, Boss. This is a personal matter, and I don't want to –"

The elevator doors opened and Gibbs turned to him. "Not asking, DiNozzo," he said mildly, and left the elevator.

As Gibbs passed through the sliding doors, Tony yelled, "This is none of your damned business!"

Director Shepard emerged suddenly from autopsy, eyes wide. "Agent DiNozzo?" she asked sharply.

Tony stared at her and knew he couldn't handle this. He practically jammed his finger pressing the button for the squad room. The elevator doors had been open long enough that they slid shut almost instantly. He tapped his foot as he hastily rebuttoned his cuff. As soon as the doors opened again, he hurried forward to grab his gear.

"Tony, where are you going?" Ziva asked.

"Lunch," he said over his shoulder as he headed back towards the elevator, hoping he could reach it before the doors closed again. Fat chance.

"It is only just ten a.m.," she protested.

"So I'm taking an early lunch," he replied with a shrug. As he reached the elevator and pressed the button, Gibbs came out of the stairwell at a trot.

"DiNozzo, what do you think you're doing?" he demanded in an undertone, and he grabbed Tony's upper arm, right on a set of bruises Tony hadn't shown him. Tony winced involuntarily, and Gibbs let go like he'd been stung. "DiNozzo, what –"

To make the day ever so much better, the director arrived on the scene just in time to witness both the grab and the wince. "Gibbs, DiNozzo, my office," she ordered.

Tony ground his teeth. He wanted to kill someone. Preferably Brody Harris, but at the moment he wasn't particular. "Director," Gibbs said, "let me handle –"

"My office, Agent Gibbs. Now," Jenny repeated, and when the doors opened, they all walked in. Tony wondered if they could make him any more conspicuous if they tried. He didn't need this right now. He needed to be left alone.

* * *

Gibbs was pissed. Not only was DiNozzo keeping secrets from him, but Jenny Shepard was pushing her nose in where it didn't belong. Again.

He strode into Jen's office and waited for her to shut the door. DiNozzo followed him in looking angry and mutinous, but Gibbs was damned if he was going to let this pass. DiNozzo had been jumpy as hell the last few weeks, ever since he'd come in with that shiner he'd passed off as an accident with a door. At the time Gibbs had assumed he'd had an encounter with an annoyed ex-boyfriend or a husband he'd been unaware of, but clearly there was more going on.

"Does someone want to explain that little scene?" Jen asked once she'd closed the door and walked over to stand facing both of them.

DiNozzo jumped in immediately with, "It's nothing, ma'am."

Jenny looked over at Gibbs, then turned back to Tony. "Tony, under these circumstances, I have to ask this. Has Agent Gibbs hurt you?"

Gibbs raised his eyes to the ceiling. She knew him better than that, but covering her political ass had become second nature to her lately. She supposedly knew Tony too, and he wondered why a woman who was so smart could sometimes be so blind. Not that he'd win any prizes for observation if this had been going on for a month or more.

"What?" Tony exclaimed sounding stunned. "Are you nuts?"

Gibbs snorted. "That's funny, director, I was about to ask you if you'd co-opted my agent for another undercover assignment."

Jen's eyes widened, and DiNozzo turned to him, clearly startled. "I would have told you, Boss."

"Good," Gibbs said. "Why won't you tell me this?" Tony froze, an expression of . . . _shame?_ . . . crossing his face. He turned towards the windows and shut Gibbs out.

"What is 'this'?" Jenny asked.

Gibbs grimaced. He wasn't going to be able to keep her out of it, so he supposed he'd better tell her. "DiNozzo has been physically assaulted within the last twenty-four hours, and he won't talk about it." Tony continued to look towards the windows, his shoulders stiff with fury. "And it's not the first time," Gibbs added, and Tony turned with a surprised look.

"Is this true, Agent DiNozzo?" Jenny asked.

Tony's expression closed down again. "It's a personal matter," he said stiffly.

"Exactly what kind of injuries are we talking about here, Tony?" Jen asked.

"It's nothing, director," Tony repeated.

Gibbs rolled his eyes. "He has bruises on his wrists, and apparently on his right upper arm."

Jen gazed at Tony for a long moment, then shot a glance at Gibbs. She took a step closer to Tony. "If this is something consensual . . ." Gibbs hadn't seriously considered that, but the cues weren't right.

"No!" Tony replied instantly, looking almost offended. "No," he said again with less emphasis. "It's a personal matter that I'm dealing with myself."

Jen walked over to her desk, picked up her phone and said, "Cynthia, get me the DC police on the phone, I –"

At the word police, Tony took what looked like an involuntary step towards Jen. "No!" he exclaimed.

Jen paused. "Cynthia, hold off on that, please," she said, and she hung up the phone. She pursed her lips. "What's going on here, Tony?"

"I'm dealing with it," Tony said.

"Not well," Gibbs put in as gently as he could, and Tony flinched. "You've been jumpy for about three weeks now and –"

"I don't want to talk about it!" Tony said.

"Is it a matter for the police or for NCIS?" Jenny asked.

Gibbs scowled. "An NCIS agent was attacked, director. It's a matter for NCIS."

"It's personal," Tony said, beginning to sound desperate.

"Is it job-related?"

"No," Tony said, but he sounded like the word was being dragged out of him.

"So it's a matter for the police."

"No," Tony said.

"Why not?

Tony scowled. With palpable reluctance, he relented. "Because it's a cop," he said. "A DC cop."

"You're being harassed by DC Metro?" Gibbs asked. He exchanged a look with Jen. They'd certainly rubbed Metro the wrong way a time or two, but why would Tony be insisting so firmly that it was personal in that case?

"No!" Tony growled. He rubbed his forehead then stroked his hair back. "It's not like that. It's . . ." He shook his head and walked over to sit down in one of the chairs.

"It's . . . personal?" Jenny said in tones of realization, and Gibbs blinked.

Tony buried his face in his hands. "Fuck!" he said with heartfelt dismay.

Jenny glanced at Gibbs again and walked over to lean against her desk. "Tony, talk to me. What's going on?"

Tony stilled, and when he looked up his expression was sharp and cynical. "Like I'd talk to you about my love life," he said, his voice dripping with venom. "The last advice you gave me turned out so very well."

"That wasn't your love life, Tony," she said. "That was work."

Gibbs took a step forward, but before he could intervene, Tony spoke. "You're right," he said, his voice brittle with anger. "You make an excellent point, director."

"Aren't you late for a meeting, director?" Gibbs asked, his voice laced with irritation and warning. He wasn't letting her wrap DiNozzo up into any more knots over Jeanne Benoit. He remembered all too well how her attempt at a debriefing had derailed.

She looked at him and glanced at her watch. "Actually, I am. Please, use my office for as long as you need it." Gathering her things, she left. Gibbs hoped she gave Cynthia orders to give them some privacy. They did not need Jenny's secretary walking in right now.

He stood there, waiting. If he waited long enough, Tony would talk. And he did. He started off explaining which movie he felt like he was in. Gibbs had never seen it, so he didn't really pay attention. Tony talking about movies was like Ducky talking about the Sudan, it went in one ear and out the other. What Gibbs did pay attention to was the emotional subtext of Tony's blather. He was nervous, embarrassed and . . . and Gibbs still got an inexplicable impression of shame from him. After awhile, Tony couldn't help it, he got down to brass tacks. "I got into a relationship, Boss," he said finally. "It went sour. I'm handling it."

Gibbs grabbed Tony's hand and pushed up his sleeve to show the bruises. "This is not handling it, Tony." He shook his head. "You got feelings for this guy?"

"Who says it's a guy?" Tony protested.

Gibbs unbuttoned Tony's cuff and looked at the bruise, a little surprised that Tony was permitting the liberty. Then he put his hand gently around Tony's wrist to mimic the shape of the bruise, and Tony was out of his chair and five feet away before he could blink. Gibbs looked up at him worriedly. "How far did it go?" he asked. Tony just shook his head. Gibbs was getting damned frustrated with this. He took a step towards him. "How far did it go, DiNozzo?"

"Not that far," Tony said, flushing unhappily.

"How far?"

"Gibbs, it . . ." Tony closed his eyes. "It was in a pubic place, Boss. It didn't go far."

"How far would it have gone if it hadn't been in a public place?"

Tony flushed hotter. "I kneed him in the crotch. He let go and I got the hell out of there."

That didn't answer his question, but Gibbs decided to let it go for now. "What's his name?"

Tony's face went blank for a moment, then his eyes widened into his most innocently puzzled expression. "Who?" he asked.

"DiNozzo!"

"You know my name, Boss," Tony said with gentle reproof.

Gibbs barely kept his tone under control. "What is this guy's name?" he demanded.

Tony blinked at him, and his expression underwent another lightening change. Suddenly he was all business. "What do you think about looking into the McCormick case again, Boss? I've got this feeling that there's something in the evidence that I'm not –"

Gibbs gave up. DiNozzo had stubborn down to an art. "Okay, let's get you down to Ducky."

Tony grimaced. "Is there any way I can get out of this?"

Gibbs knew he had to get DiNozzo distracted or he'd try to get away without being examined again. He shrugged as he led the way out of the director's office. "You could die in the elevator on the way down," he said.

Tony's eyes widened and he looked sort of stuffed. "I'd really . . . rather not."

Gibbs made a pretense of considering the matter. "Of course, then you would still be examined by Ducky."

Tony's jaw dropped. "You've just taken the creepiness award away from Abby," he said when he'd recovered himself. "Just swept it right out from under her."

The elevator doors opened and Gibbs stepped in. "You going to tell her she's been dethroned, DiNozzo?" he asked, trying to maintain the semblance of banter DiNozzo was attempting to put up, but the effort was unavailing. DiNozzo was unusually silent on the way down, and he didn't object to going into autopsy this time. Palmer was working on some kind of inventory task by the sink and Ducky was at his desk. "Palmer, out," Gibbs ordered.

Ducky stood up, looking startled. "Jethro?" he asked, his irritation at having his authority bypassed obvious.

"Palmer, out," Gibbs repeated, telegraphing to Ducky that there was something big afoot. Ducky glanced at DiNozzo, who was studiously examining his shoes, and his eyebrows went up.

"But I'm working on –"

"Take an early lunch, Mr. Palmer," Ducky said. "And call before you come back."

"Yes, doctor," Palmer said, sounding mystified, and he left.

"Is something wrong, Jethro?"

"I need you to examine Tony and report back to me on his fitness for duty."

Tony's spine straightened and he glared at Gibbs. "I'm fine, Boss," he replied.

"Then this shouldn't be any problem for you." Gibbs smiled at DiNozzo's flabbergasted look.

"Is there some sort of subtext here that I'm unaware of?" Ducky asked.

"Oh, don't worry, you'll figure it out soon enough," DiNozzo muttered. He began taking off his tie, but then he glanced at the two sets of sliding glass doors. "Wait a minute. I don't want anyone to see me, Boss."

"It's never been a problem before, DiNozzo," Gibbs said.

Tony closed his eyes and pulled his tie off. Looking over Ducky's shoulder, he unbuttoned his dress shirt. The sleeveless undershirt he wore underneath didn't hide the massive bite on his neck, or the bruising along his collarbone. Gibbs felt a stirring of anger, not just at the man who had done this to Tony, but at Tony himself for not coming to him with it.

"Oh my," Ducky said, and Tony flushed again, looking away. "When did this happen, dear boy?" he asked, but before Tony could answer, he said, "Last night, I suppose. Take off your shirt, please."

Gibbs waited until it was clear that Tony would comply, then he said, "I'll be back for you, Tony. You stay here until I come back, you hear me?"

"Yeah, Boss," Tony muttered as he slipped the dress shirt off.

Gibbs got a clear look at the bruising all up and down Tony's arms before he headed out the door. When he reached the squad room, he could see that Ziva and McGee were huddled together over Ziva's desk, talking very quietly. "McGee!" he barked. McGee snapped to attention. "I want you to look up complaints of excessive force, harassment and . . . domestic abuse against members of DC Metro PD." McGee gaped at him. "Now, McGee!"

"Do you know how many returns that's going to give me?" McGee asked.

"Limit your search to active duty officers," Gibbs added. "Between the ages of thirty and forty-five."

"On it, Boss," McGee said, hurrying to his desk. Gibbs sat down and looked in the phone book under bars, making a list of the ones he knew were frequented by off duty cops.

"Gibbs?" Ziva asked hesitantly. He raised his eyes to where she was standing, close to the divider between their cubicles. "Where is Tony?" He sensed rather than saw McGee's head come up slightly, betraying his interest in the answer to that question.

"Autopsy," he said shortly, returning to his list.

"Why?" she asked.

"Don't you have some work to do?" Gibbs asked her without looking up.

"I do not," she replied, and this brought his head up. "You did not give me an assignment, and I do not believe any of my cold cases are as urgent as understanding what is going on with my partner. He must be injured, or he would not be alone with Ducky in autopsy."

Gibbs gazed at her for a long moment. "Good girl," he said with a grin. "Now get back to work."

"On what?" she asked.

He thought for a moment. "McGee, pass your information on to Ziva and let her work on it. I want you to pull up Tony's phone records." He could feel their eyes on him. "Cell phone and land line both."

"What am I looking for?" McGee asked.

"Obsession," Gibbs said flatly. There was silence in their work area, no key clicks, nothing more than breathing. Gibbs looked up. "McGee?" The younger man was staring at him like a deer in headlights, and Gibbs relented. "Look for a lot of calls to him from the same number over the last few weeks, calls he doesn't return."

"Yes Boss," McGee said.

Gibbs kept working on his list. McGee passed his task on to Ziva and got down to work on the phone records. Gibbs devoutly wished DiNozzo would just come clean and make all this unnecessary, but he knew how likely that was.

His phone rang. "Gibbs," he said, hoping it wasn't a case.

"Jethro, can I see you in my office?" Jenny said.

"Be right there." He rose and headed for the stairs. When Ziva got up and started towards his desk, he said, "Keep working, Officer David," without turning his head, and she hastily returned to her own desk.

Cynthia waved him straight into the director's office. "Close the door, Jethro," Jen said, and he did. She was seated behind her desk. He walked up to stand in front. "What did he say?" she asked.

"Not a whole hell of a lot," Gibbs replied. "Just that there was a relationship, and that it went sour."

"What kind of relationship?" she asked.

"I don't know, exactly, but he's scared."

"DiNozzo?" she said incredulously. "Scared?"

"Yeah, Jen. He's just as human as the rest of us."

"He told you that?"

"No, he showed me," Gibbs replied. "He hasn't told me squat. He won't even give me a name."

She shook her head. "Why doesn't that surprise me?"

"I left him with Ducky."

"When he's done and you've got Ducky's report, I want to see you both again."

"Sure." He raised his eyebrows to see if he was dismissed and she nodded. His phone was ringing as he reached his desk. He lifted the receiver. "Gibbs."

"Jethro, we're done down here. Young Anthony is getting dressed. Do you want to come down here to get my report or –"

"Be there in a second." He hung up without waiting for a response.

Tony stood leaning against one of the tables with his back to the door when Gibbs reached autopsy. Ducky was washing his hands. "Well?" Gibbs said.

"He's fit enough. None of the bruising is terribly deep except on his wrists, and that doesn't seem to be affecting his mobility significantly." Ducky glanced over at DiNozzo, then gave Gibbs a significant look and gestured towards Tony's face. Raising his eyebrows, Gibbs walked around and looked. The younger man shifted irritably, but he didn't turn away. Gibbs stared at the bruise on Tony's cheekbone and noted that his subordinate wouldn't meet his eyes.

"Make up?" he asked.

"Indeed," Ducky said. "Very clever work, too."

Tony took a deep breath. "Do you still need me?" he asked.

"For what, DiNozzo?" Gibbs replied.

Tony flinched, but he raised his chin. "Ducky's report," he said.

"No, I guess not." Gibbs peered at the bruise again. "You going to cover that back up?"

Shrugging, Tony said, "I brought the stuff with me in case I needed to touch it up." He gestured towards the pack he'd grabbed in his abortive attempt to escape the office.

"Did you do it yourself?" Tony nodded. "You going to fix it up in the bathroom?" Tony grimaced and didn't reply. "I think Abby has a mirror you can use," Gibbs suggested.

"Thanks Boss," Tony said, and he left the room quickly, the doors sliding shut behind him.

"You're being rather rough on him," Ducky observed in the neutral voice he reserved for when he wasn't sure he approved of Gibbs' tactics with his team.

Gibbs didn't respond directly. He already felt guilty for his harsh response to Tony's earlier plea for privacy, but he didn't want to discuss the matter. "How bad is it, Duck?" he asked.

"Bad enough," Ducky said, abandoning his disapproval for the moment. "You saw the bruising on his arms, but he has a number of bruises between his thighs that he tells me came from a knee being forced between his legs, and there is a nearly full handprint on his left buttock."

"What did he tell you happened?" Gibbs asked. Maybe Tony had felt more able to confide in Ducky.

"Not much, Jethro. I pushed him to explain the bruising between his legs by suggesting that it implied the need for a rape kit. He told me that he was fully clothed during the whole of the assault and that he hadn't had sex of any kind for several weeks."

"Have you got any guess as to the size of this guy?"

Ducky pursed his lips. "Bigger than Anthony, though not necessarily taller. His hands are very large."

"I picked up on that," Gibbs said.

"Mmmh," Ducky replied. "He seems very unsettled." Gibbs raised his eyebrows. "Of course he has reason, I do see that, but Anthony so rarely lets anything show."

"He didn't until I called him on the bruises I could see when he stretched out his arm," Gibbs said.

"So he didn't come to you with this," Ducky asked, his eyebrows going up.

"He did not." Gibbs took a breath and looked into Ducky's eyes. "Anything else I need to know?"

"If I were reconstructing the events those injuries demonstrate, I would say that he had been grabbed by the upper arms and slammed into a wall. He has bruises on his shoulders, his lower back, and a small bump on the back of his head. The attacker then shoved a knee between his legs, no doubt to immobilize him." Gibbs scowled and looked away, the images all too clear in his mind. "It is different when it's someone you know," the medical examiner observed unnecessarily.

"Go on, Ducky," Gibbs growled impatiently.

"Yes, of course. Well, he got his hands around Tony's wrists, and they struggled. I believe that is when the bruise on his face happened. He subdued Tony and held both his wrists in one hand while he groped."

"And then Tony kneed him in the groin."

"Gaining himself a bruise just above the knee."

"So we are looking at a very big guy."

"Tony is by no means a small man, but this fellow can clearly physically control him fairly effectively. And the handprint on his buttock covers a great deal of skin."

Gibbs nodded and started back towards the door. "Thanks Duck."

"Do we know who the perpetrator is?"

"_We _don't," Gibbs replied as he passed through the door. "Tony does." The doors shut behind him, leaving the medical examiner to make of that statement what he would. Scowling, Gibbs punched the elevator button. Sooner or later, Tony was going to talk.

* * *

Tony swung into Abby's lab, keeping the right side of his face towards the wall. She appeared to be hard at work on something, she certainly had the music up loud enough. "Abby?" he said. She didn't respond. He raised his voice. "Abby!" he called.

She jumped and turned, and a three story house of cards with gothic arches collapsed, sending cards across the table and onto the floor. "Tony! Don't _do _that!"

"Hard at work, I see," he said with a grin. Abby was clearly not aware that there was a secret, which made it easier to be normal at her.

"Get me some evidence to play with and I will work hard," she said defensively. "What can I do for you?"

"Do you have a mirror I could borrow?" he asked, and her eyes widened. She walked closer to him, and he sighed as she reached for his chin and turned his face so she could see the bruise on his cheekbone.

"What happened to you?"

Tony improvised hastily. "There was this girl, you see, and we were flirting. Then her best friend started hitting on me, and she went to smack her and missed."

Abby blinked at him. "Okay, don't tell me. I've got a mirror in here."

"I think I've just been insulted," Tony said. She set up a vanity mirror on her desk and he grinned. "Perfect. Thanks Abby." He dug into his pack and pulled out the make up

"No problem." Leaning over his shoulder, she watched him get to work covering the bruise, and he started to ask her if she didn't have something better to do. Then he remembered the flimsy structure that had just collapsed and decided not to. "Hey, that's the good stuff," she said.

"Yeah, stage make up." Tony gently rubbed it on, trying not to press too hard. "Told you I did drama in college."

"Right. Not bad. Not bad at all."

He met her eyes in the mirror and winked. "Glad to have my skills approved by a competent expert." She curtsied and giggled. "Now a bit of powder and I'm good to go."

"Amazing. If I didn't know it was there I wouldn't . . ." She trailed off and stood up straight, her fingers fiddling with the end of one of her braids. "How often do you do this, Tony?"

"I don't," Tony said, looking up at her in alarm. "I don't get enough bruises to need to."

"You didn't cover that shiner last month," she remarked thoughtfully.

Tony nodded, not mentioning that it would have taken a true expert to properly cover a shiner that big. "See, I just don't want a lot of questions," he said. "And now I've got to get back to work."

"Send me down some evidence!" she called as he left. "Any kind will do!"

Upstairs, he ignored the curious looks he got from other agents as he returned to their little bullpen. Gibbs wasn't there, but both Ziva and McGee were hard at work. As he passed McGee, he noticed the younger man looking up at him nervously. "What'cha working on, Probie?" he asked cheerily, and he leaned over the partition to see a list of phone numbers that looked startlingly familiar before it disappeared and was replaced by McGee's wallpaper. Tony's stomach flipped over, but he hid his alarm under a mask of irritation. He stood up straight, dug in his pocket and dropped his cell phone over McGee's desk. The other man caught it and stared at it for a moment. "It might be easier just to look at the history, Probie."

"Gibbs ordered it, Tony," McGee said.

"Oh, I know," Tony replied grimly.

"You're not being accused of anything, are you, Tony?" McGee asked.

Charming thought. He shook his head. "Aside from having devilish good looks, no, and that's common knowledge."

"Right," McGee said sourly, and Tony dropped his pack and sat down at his desk. He was all too aware of Ziva's eyes on him. Now that she knew there was something to spot, she was all the more likely to spot it, and he had to keep his right cheek towards her to work on his computer.

"So, Zee Vah!" Tony said, figuring that annoying her would distract her sufficiently to keep her mind off trying to find anomalies in his person. "What does Gibbs have you doing?"

"Working," Gibbs said, and Tony snapped around. Gibbs strode through their space swiftly. "DiNozzo, you're with me." Tony scrambled to his feet and followed. Gibbs wasn't grabbing gear, so he left his behind, wondering where they were going. When he figured it out, he clenched his teeth. What else did Jenny want?

Gibbs led the way into the director's office, and Tony presented himself properly before her desk, waiting for the axe to fall. "Agent DiNozzo," she said, "you have expressed a preference not to involve the police in this situation."

"Yes ma'am," he said when she paused.

"Can you give me one good reason why not?"

Tony had been trying to come up with something she and Gibbs might accept, and he cleared his throat. "Because it's my word against his, ma'am. I have no proof to offer that what passed between us wasn't consensual."

Jenny stared at him for a long moment, then said, "I see."

"It's a personal matter, and I'd prefer to keep it that way." He didn't dare look at Gibbs. He didn't want to see how he was reacting.

Jenny took a deep breath and appeared to be thinking very hard. "I can accept that argument," she said, and he didn't let his relief show, putting on the iron man face he'd learned from Gibbs. "Unless you've been determined to be unfit for duty . . ." She paused and raised an eyebrow at Gibbs. Tony still didn't turn, and his boss had remained behind him. "Very well, then, for the moment I will take no official notice of this." Tony couldn't keep his relief off his face now. "But there are conditions," she added.

"Conditions?" Tony repeated warily.

"If this man comes near you again, if he tries to contact you, you will tell Agent Gibbs and myself immediately."

"Director!" Tony protested.

"Otherwise I will direct Agent Gibbs to open a case immediately."

Tony scowled. Great, now he was getting pushed from both sides. "Fine," he grated.

"You are dismissed, Agent DiNozzo."

He turned and walked out without a glance at Gibbs, and he heard her hold his boss back. He went back down the stairs and jittered at his desk, wondering what she was talking to Gibbs about.

* * *

"Yes Jenny?" Gibbs said once DiNozzo had closed the door and gone.

"I said we won't take official notice. I want you to start an unofficial investigation. Find out who this guy is."

Gibbs shrugged. "Already underway, Jen."

Her self-deprecating smile acknowledged that she should have known the order was unnecessary. "How bad is it?"

Gibbs considered how best to answer the question without compromising DiNozzo's privacy any more than he had to. "He hasn't been raped," he said mildly.

"That isn't exactly reassuring."

"Is it supposed to be?" Gibbs asked. She really did have her head on backwards sometimes.

"What are we going to do to keep him safe in the meantime?"

"I don't know what you're going to do," Gibbs said. "I'm taking him home with me tonight."

Her eyebrows went up. "How long is that going to last?"

"Until I decide otherwise," he said.

"You always were high-handed, Jethro," she said with evident amusement.

Gibbs shrugged again. "When I have to be."

"Which is always?" Jenny asked.

His patience exhausted, Gibbs tilted his head. "You need anything else, Jenny?"

"No. That's all."

Gibbs left the office and went out on the mezzanine where he looked down on his team from above. McGee and Ziva were working hard while Tony sat at his desk getting absolutely nothing done. He made his way down the stairs, startled by the fact that DiNozzo was being quiet. Usually when he was nonproductive, he was blathering on about something. It only made Gibbs worry all the more. From the look Ziva shot him, he could tell that she had noticed, too.

"DiNozzo?"

"Yeah, Boss?" Tony said. He didn't get up. He barely even looked up.

"Didn't you say something about the McCormick case?"

DiNozzo's head came up. "What?" He blinked at Gibbs. "Yes."

"Then get to work."

DiNozzo stared at him for a moment, and Gibbs raised his eyebrows. Tony bent to his computer and started working.

* * *

Tony glanced at his computer's clock and contemplated the fact that it was quitting time. On the whole, none of them paid much attention to their posted hours because on the whole, they were busy on casework, and their posted hours made limited sense. Today, however, Tony was past ready to leave. He didn't have anything hot, and he was tired of the covert glances Ziva and McGee kept shooting him. He was annoyed by the thought that they were investigating him rather than a real case, and the tension he was feeling from Gibbs made him want to be as far away from the man as possible. Sooner or later the blow was going to fall, and he didn't particularly want it to be today. He'd had enough fun today.

Gibbs was down talking to Abby about something, and Tony suspected from the lack of communication he'd had from that quarter since his visit earlier that Gibbs had her working on some aspect of this case that they weren't taking 'official notice' of. He didn't know if the director had ordered Gibbs not to pursue it or what, but if she had, he was ignoring her.

When Ziva got up to use the head, Tony took advantage of McGee's legendary focus and, holding his backpack carefully in front of him where McGee wouldn't see it, he got up and headed for the elevator. The wait for the car to come and the door to open were the longest forty seconds he'd experienced all day. He stepped quickly in when the doors opened and cut left to stand against the wall where McGee would have more trouble noticing him if he happened to look up. When the doors closed, he just had to worry that either Ziva or Gibbs would somehow magically wind up outside this elevator when it opened again on his floor. That kind of thing happened often enough that he didn't relax till he was in his car and on the road.

Brody Harris had a lot to answer for, and today's tensions just topped the list. What had started as a much-needed descent into no-strings-attached carnality had taken a turn for the surreal when Brody had abruptly started checking up on Tony's whereabouts at random moments. Tony hadn't known what to make of it, but he started distancing himself when he realized that Brody was getting jealous. They weren't dating, they were screwing around, and Brody had no claim on him.

He took the turn into the parking garage attached to his apartment building and pulled into his spot. Home. He was looking forward to a pleasant evening spent watching movies and drinking beer. He got out of the car and shouldered his pack, heading for the elevator. A large figure emerged from between two cars ahead, but instead of moving towards the elevators, it came towards him. Tony recognized him instantly and felt a frisson of fear that he quickly suppressed. He came to a stop. "What are you doing here, Brody?"

"You ran away from me last night," Brody said, walking up so that he was just inside Tony's space bubble and stopping. "I want to figure this out, Tony."

"There's nothing to figure out," Tony said, keeping his tone as light as he could. He wanted to back up, but that would just give Brody what he wanted, and he'd keep pushing. He knew that from experience. "I told you, we're done."

"Why do you get to decide for both of us?" Brody asked, raising his eyebrows. "We need to talk about it. I don't want us to be done."

"Fine, Brody, then I'm done," Tony said. He took a step sideways and started towards the elevator.

Brody turned and paced him. "You're right, Tony, we really should have our conversation in your apartment."

Tony stopped again. "We're not having this conversation. Everything that needs to be said has been said. I'm not doing this anymore."

"I'm not leaving till we've talked it out, Tony," Brody said, crossing his arms. "So we might as well go inside and –"

"You're not welcome in my apartment," Tony said, glaring at his former friend. "I thought I'd made that pretty clear."

"Giving me a key and then telling me to stay out is kind of a mixed message, Tony," Brody said. "You haven't even asked for it back."

Tony scowled. "Fine, then give it back."

"Tony," Brody exclaimed in exasperation. "I don't believe you mean any of this." He put his hand on Tony's shoulder and squeezed, trying to catch Tony's eye. Tony did take a step back then, to break the physical contact. "Let's go get dinner and you can explain it to me again. I'll listen."

One of Tony's neighbors passed by them and Tony bit his lip. This was an awfully public place to be having this conversation, but he wasn't letting Brody back into his apartment. "Fine, let's go down to the place on the corner."

They walked in silence, and Tony wished he could figure out how to just make Brody leave him alone. The man took stubborn to a whole new level. Tony took the stairs down, not really wanting to spend even a couple of minutes alone with Brody in an enclosed space. Five minutes in the alley last night had been more than enough.

The place on the corner wasn't so much a restaurant as a deli. Orders were taken at the counter and paid for, and when the food was ready, someone brought it to the table.

Tony went to the counter and ordered a sandwich that would take them maybe three minutes to put together in the back. Once his food came, he'd have an excuse to leave, and there would be no check to worry about.

"I'm buying," Brody said as Tony dug out his wallet.

"No, you're not," Tony said, pulling out some cash for his food. "That was one of the things we agreed on from the start. No 'date' trappings."

Brody held out a card to the cashier. "Maybe I want things to change a little," he said quietly in Tony's ear.

The cashier looked at them nervously. She took the cash Tony held out, glancing uneasily at Brody, who lowered his card when it became clear that no one was going to accept it. Tony took his change and his number and thanked her. Then he found an unoccupied table that was close to the exit and seated himself where Brody would have trouble blocking him in.

Brody took in the seating arrangements with a sneer and sat down across from Tony. "Why do –"

Tony leaned across and interrupted him in a low voice. "Brody, this is not a negotiation back into any kind of a relationship. This is me explaining to you why we don't have a relationship anymore." His phone rang, and he pulled it off his belt. Gibbs. He didn't really want to talk to his boss right now, but . . . any port in a storm. As he started to flip the phone open, Brody snatched it.

"Gibbs, huh?" Brody said, glancing at the LED. "He can wait."

Tony shook his head and held his hand out for the phone. "We're not twelve, and this isn't a game of keep away. This is my job. Give that back."

"We need to talk."

Short of wrestling it out of Brody's hand, which would draw unwanted attention, he wasn't getting it back at this moment. Tony huffed out a sigh of exasperation. "Fine, you asked me to explain it to you again. You got the wrong idea about our relationship, and when I tried to back off, you wouldn't let me."

"If I got the wrong idea, Tony, it's because you gave me the wrong idea."

Tony gulped. He really hoped that wasn't the case. "If so, I'm sorry, but I'm not willing to deal with your jealousy or your possessiveness." The phone stopped ringing, and Tony ground his teeth. Now Gibbs was going to lecture him about rule three. This was so not his night.

"I'm not any of those things," Brody said. "I just like to know where you are."

"And when I tell you and you don't like it, you get to punch me in the eye?" Tony asked in a brittle voice. Brody rolled his eyes. "And when I say I don't want to talk to you, you get to slam me against a wall?"

"Don't be such a girl, Tony," Brody said.

Tony snorted, shaking his head. "And now we know why I'm done." Meredith came out with his sandwich wrapped to go. He rose and thanked her, taking the bag. His phone began to ring again. He grabbed it before Brody could put it out of reach and answered it. "DiNozzo."

"Where the hell are you, DiNozzo?" Gibbs demanded.

"Getting dinner," he said, turning his back on Brody and walking out into the street. "Why?"

"Because I'm staring at your car wondering where the hell you are and why my key doesn't work in your apartment door anymore."

"Why are you – I'll be there in five minutes, Boss. I'm just down the block."

"Good." The phone went dead as Gibbs disconnected. Tony flipped the phone shut and put it back on his belt.

A hand on his shoulder made him turn. Brody stood there. Tony shrugged away. "You're not going to do this on a crowded street in broad daylight, are you?" he asked. Brody looked around, then went back into the deli, scowling, and Tony sighed with relief.

Returning to the garage, he found Gibbs leaning against his car. "Got your locks changed, huh?" his boss asked.

"Yeah," Tony said on a sigh. "I've got a new key for you. I've been meaning to give it to you, but –"

"But you weren't sure how to explain the change, were you?"

Tony shrugged and hit the elevator button. "What's up, Boss? Why're you here?"

"You're staying with me, DiNozzo. I didn't expect you to leave without checking in."

"With you, Boss?" Tony said. "But . . ." Gibbs raised his eyebrows, and Tony thought better of what he'd been about to say. "Okay. Thanks for the invitation."

The rest of the ride passed in silence, and Tony led the way to his apartment. Once they were inside, he went straight to his desk and pulled out Gibbs' copy of the key.

"When did you change the lock?" Gibbs asked.

"Three weeks ago," Tony said. "Let me pack some things. How long am I staying with you?"

"Till I say otherwise."

Tony stopped dead in the door to his bedroom and turned around. Brody's voice telling him not to be a girl rang in his ears. "I'm not hiding from him, Boss," he protested.

"No, you're not," Gibbs said. "You're staying with a coworker."

Tony shook his head. "It will look like I'm hiding."

Gibbs walked up to him, very close, but he did not break the space bubble. "I don't give a damn what it looks like, DiNozzo. Pack your things and let's go." Recognizing that Gibbs was not going to listen to reason, Tony nodded and went into his room. Gibbs headed out into the living room again, but as he went he added, "And it's not like we're going to the Antilles, DiNozzo. Pack light, we can come back if you need more later."

Tony dropped his sandwich on the bed, grabbed a couple pairs of jeans, some boxers, a few shirts that wouldn't hold wrinkles and stuffed them in his duffle. Opening his closet, he debated taking a suit, but an impatient noise from the living room made him close the door, grab the duffel and go. He headed towards the front door, but Gibbs pulled him up short. "You forgot your sandwich, DiNozzo."

Flushing, Tony went back and got it. "So, am I driving myself, or –"

"You're with me," Gibbs replied. "I'm parked on the street."

Tony hoped they wouldn't run smack into Brody on their way to Gibbs' truck. His luck, though it had been out all day, seemed to be in now because they didn't. The ride was quiet. Tony was aware of too many things he didn't want to say, and Gibbs was being himself. Once at Gibbs' place, Tony took his stuff up to the bedroom he always stayed in, then headed downstairs, the sandwich bag dangling from his hand. He put it on the coffee table and sat down on the sofa, covering his face with his hands. He didn't move until he heard glass settling on wood. Widening the gaps between his fingers, he peered at the coffee table in front of him. Gibbs had placed a beer within easy reach. It was so cold, it had beads of condensation running down its sides. Reaching out, Tony picked it up, took a deep swallow and sighed.

Gibbs sat down at the other end of the sofa with his own beer. "For someone who went to all the trouble of going out to buy a sandwich, you don't seem to be very interested in it."

Tony looked at the paper wrapped bundle in its clear plastic bag. The idea of eating it made him feel slightly nauseated. After a moment, he picked it up and threw it across the room where it thumped against the wall and fell to the floor. Fortunately, it didn't break open.

"That make you feel better, DiNozzo?"

Tony slumped back on the sofa. "Not really."

"You want to tell me –"

"Am I fired?" Tony asked abruptly, as anxious to get it out of the way now as he had been to avoid it earlier.

Gibbs was silent for a minute, or maybe two. The time stretched into hours. "Now, why would you be fired, DiNozzo?"

Tony stared at the neck of his beer for a moment, then glanced uneasily at Gibbs, who was just gazing at him with what looked like genuine puzzlement. He thumped his head back against the sofa and grimaced. "Okay, now I feel stupid."

"Is that why you didn't come to me?" Gibbs asked, and Tony shrugged, knowing his boss would read the gesture correctly. He read things in Tony's body language that Tony had managed to keep hidden from everyone else for years. "I'd give you a solid smack on the head, but Ducky tells me you've got a bit of a bump."

Tony closed his eyes and groaned. "So, do we go down and work on your boat, now?"

"You going to get drunk and break things?" Gibbs asked.

Startled by the question, Tony turned to him. He looked like he was in earnest. "I have no plans in that direction."

Gibbs snorted, but he didn't explain the bizarre question. "I take it you don't want the sandwich."

"Nope."

"Why not?"

Tony drained the beer and put the bottle down. "He was in the garage when I got home," he said.

Gibbs straightened up. "He do anything?"

"No. He just wanted to talk. I figured the deli on the corner was my best bet for shedding him without a fuss."

"He seem like he was giving up?"

Tony rubbed his eyes and took a deep breath. "You got any more of these?" he asked, gesturing at the empty bottle.

"I thought you weren't getting drunk."

"On beer, Boss? It takes way more than two to get me any further than mellow."

"Are you going to answer my question?"

"Is it a condition of getting another beer?"

"Does it have to be, DiNozzo?"

Tony leaned forward and shrugged. "No, he didn't seem like he was giving up."

There was a knock on the door, and Tony looked up, mildly alarmed. Brody wouldn't have followed them, would he? Gibbs gave him a dubious look as he got up and went to answer the door. The voice he heard made Tony grin with relief. Abby would distract Gibbs completely from his attempt at interrogation. Gibbs followed her in, and Tony saw from the expression on his face that he had come to the same realization.

"Abby!" Tony said as if he hadn't seen her for a week. She shoved the bags she'd brought into Gibbs' arms and flew across to give him a huge bear hug. He returned the embrace, then drew back. He started to say something, but she gave him a punch in the ribs. "Ow!" he exclaimed, though it didn't really hurt. Somehow she'd missed all his bruises. "What was that for?" he asked, rubbing the spot.

"For lying to me. You knew Gibbs knew, so you should have known I would know before long, so you might as well have told me the truth, but now I know, and you know that I know, and –"

"Abby . . ." Gibbs said remonstratively.

"It's true," she protested, though Tony was pretty sure he wasn't objecting to the veracity of what she'd said. "Anyway, I brought a few things over because I remember what it was like when I came over here because I was being stalked."

"Abby, I'm not being stalked," Tony said.

"Is that so, DiNozzo?" Gibbs asked in that deceptively mild tone he used when he was calling them on a fib. Tony looked away.

"Gibbs?" Abby exclaimed. "I thought you would have cured him of his denial by now."

"He's a tougher case than you, Abbs, and I got interrupted."

"By what?" she asked, clearly not sure.

Tony rolled his eyes at her and snorted, amused by her lack of clue. "What did you bring me?" he asked.

"Oh! Presents!" She hurried over to where Gibbs had put the bags down. "I picked up some rum because I know you prefer that to bourbon, and I got these." She turned around with a couple of packets.

Tony took one and looked at it. "Blow up fists?" he asked.

"Well, I thought they might be helpful, since when I was here, I broke Gibbs' boat. This will keep you from damaging anything."

Tony blinked at her. "You broke the boat?" She nodded. "And you're still alive?"

"He loves me," she replied, grinning up at Gibbs, who shook his head, a slight grin on his face. "Anyway, I just wanted to bring those over and check up on you because I haven't seen you since you lied to me."

"You're not going to let me forget that anytime soon, are you?"

"We'll see. You still haven't brought me any evidence." She turned to Gibbs. "So, I'll leave him to you, Bossman. See you tomorrow." She bustled out, like a black and red comet full of good cheer. Gibbs followed her and closed the door behind her.

Tony took the rum into the kitchen and put it on the counter. Then he grabbed a beer from the fridge.

"You're not having rum?"

"Without Coke?" Tony asked facetiously. "Not likely."

"DiNozzo –"

"I don't want to talk about it, Boss," Tony said. "I already feel stupid enough."

"I was going to suggest ordering a pizza," Gibbs said.

"Oh." Tony studied Gibbs' expression, but he couldn't tell if he'd changed tack abruptly or if he'd always been going to ask about pizza. "I can make the call."

"Go for it. You're paying."

Tony ordered the food, but then he was left alone with Gibbs again. Tony had never been very good at silence. Naturally, Gibbs knew that and was using it against him. Tony clamped his teeth together. He knew that if he got started talking about anything, it would eventually work its way around to what Gibbs wanted to know, so he was trying not to say anything at all. Except that made him nervous, and the only that made him stop being nervous was talking. Gibbs moved around the kitchen, pulling out paper plates and napkins, vastly amused by Tony's efforts and not bothering to hide it.

The pizza arrived and Tony went to get it so he could sign the credit card receipt. They took it down to the basement where they ate without speaking for awhile, Tony sitting on the floor and watching Gibbs work. When the question came, it was a bolt out of the blue and Tony was taken entirely by surprise. "Why'd you change the locks?" Gibbs asked.

"He had a key," Tony said without thinking, then he clamped his mouth shut again. Damn it! An hour of silence made him desperate to fill the room with something – anything – and Gibbs knew it.

"You gave him a key?" Gibbs asked.

Tony shrugged and gave up on this point. "I didn't want him waiting outside my apartment. It didn't seem like that big a deal at the time."

"Has he ever used it to get into your apartment when he shouldn't have?"

Tony leaned his head back against the wall, wincing slightly when the bump made contact. "I'm not sure," he admitted finally.

Gibbs didn't respond immediately, but there was a tense quality to the silence. "You're not sure?" he asked intently.

"No, I'm not," Tony snapped. "I'm not the neatest person on the planet, so if some things were moved, I might not be able to tell. He'd started following me by that point, so I figured it was best to get the lock changed. Safer."

"Well, we'll have to be at your place between three and five tomorrow," Gibbs said.

"Between three and five?" Tony repeated. "Why?"

"To let the locksmith I called in."

"Gibbs, I already changed the lock," Tony protested. "He doesn't have a key."

"Neither did I," Gibbs replied, and Tony shook his head, not sure what he meant. "I said my key didn't work, DiNozzo, not that I didn't get in."

Tony washed a suddenly dry bite of pizza down with swig of beer and stared at nothing. The thought of Brody getting in that way, picking the lock and just coming in when Tony was out and waiting to surprise him was startlingly freaky. He didn't think Brody could pick locks, but he'd been wrong before. He hadn't thought Brody would get all demanding lover on him, either.

"What soured it?" Gibbs asked several minutes later.

"I'm sorry?" Tony asked, not immediately making the connection.

"You said you had a relationship, and it soured. What soured it?"

Tony took a deep breath and sighed. "I think I said something earlier about not wanting to talk about it."

"And just what difference did you expect that to make to me, DiNozzo?"

"I would think that a friend would be a little more sensitive to –"

"A friend, DiNozzo?" Gibbs asked.

"Well, I wouldn't be talking to my boss about it," Tony said, and Gibbs nodded slowly. "It's private and personal and utterly humiliating. Not the kind of thing you share with your boss if you can avoid it."

"What do you mean humiliating?" Gibbs asked.

"I'm a federal agent," Tony said. "I used to be a cop. I should be able to deal with this on my own. I shouldn't be –" Tony shook his head, breaking off.

"You shouldn't be what, Tony?" Gibbs asked. "You shouldn't be scared of him?"

Tony sat up straight. "I am not scared of him," he protested. "I just shouldn't need . . . help, I guess. I shouldn't need help to deal with this."

"Needing help from your friends is not a sign of weakness." Tony didn't respond. He didn't know what to say. "You didn't answer my question."

Tony stood up. "You done with the pizza?"

"Yeah."

"I'm putting it in the fridge."

"Okay." Tony grabbed one of the mugs that sat on the workbench. "Where are you taking that?"

"Rum." Gibbs raised his eyebrows, and Tony shrugged. "I'm not nearly drunk enough."

"Are you bringing the rum down here?" Gibbs asked.

"Yes."

"Then why are you taking the cup upstairs?"

"I thought I'd wash it out before I used it."

Gibbs shrugged and Tony took that for permission. He went upstairs, washed out the mug, stuck the pizza in the fridge and grabbed the rum. He also contemplated going up to the spare room and hiding, but he thought Gibbs would probably come after him if he did that. That really would be embarrassing. So instead he took the cup and the rum down with him and poured himself a healthy mugful.

Gibbs waited until he'd drunk some, then he said, "Do you trust me, Tony?"

"Of course, Boss."

"What's this guy's name?"

Tony gaped for a split second, then he recovered. "What guy?" he asked, smiling sunnily up at Gibbs and pretending to be more drunk than he was.

"Tony," Gibbs growled warningly.

"Nope, Boss, that's still my name," Tony said, and Gibbs glared at him. Tony shrugged and took another swallow of rum.

* * *

Tony could be very slippery. It was one of the things that made him a good undercover agent. He had an answer for everything, quick, off the cuff, and sometimes even believable. He loved undercover work – or he always had – because he got to be someone else for awhile. Tony DiNardo had come a little too close to Tony DiNozzo, though. Gibbs shook his head. Jen should never have run him in that op. She didn't know him well enough to recognize when he was in too deep, and DiNozzo would never admit it when he was over his head.

And that was the problem here. It might not be an undercover assignment, but DiNozzo was almost treating it like one. He'd gone from one secret relationship into another, neither of them altogether healthy, and he still wouldn't admit that he was over his head.

Alcohol loosened his tongue. A drunk Tony was a voluble Tony, but Gibbs knew that once he'd started to get really drunk, there was less chance than ever of him slipping up and spilling something he didn't want known. Maybe it was a side effect of fraternity life, Gibbs didn't know, but once DiNozzo was drunk, he turned into an eel, slipping from topic to topic and never landing on anything serious.

He'd come close to talking tonight, and that's why he was so determinedly trying to get drunk. Gibbs glanced at the clock. It was past ten. "Go to bed, DiNozzo," he said wearily. "We've got work tomorrow."

As he'd known he would, Tony leapt on the opportunity to escape and went, but Gibbs was glad to see that he left the rum behind. Gibbs sighed as he bent over and screwed the lid on tightly. He wasn't sure how to break Tony's shell on this.

He picked up his cell phone and called McGee, who was still at the office. "See if you can get the security footage for floor three, section B of the parking garage of DiNozzo's building."

"Um . . . sure, Boss," McGee said.

Gibbs closed the phone and dropped it on the workbench. Somehow, he doubted Tony would open up even if they identified his tormentor. Gibbs wondered whether he was going to have to get the story from the bastard. He would if Tony wouldn't tell him.

The next morning, Gibbs was surprised not to have to call Tony. He was up and raring to go at five a.m. In Gibbs' experience, Tony was not an early riser, and though people change, Gibbs didn't think Tony had become a morning person. On the other hand, awakening from troubled dreams could make a man decide that going without sleep was better than spending another hour in hell.

They made a stop by the shop Tony called Gibbs' 'caffeine pusher,' and Gibbs shook his head over Tony's sugar and cream with a splash of coffee. Tony seemed not to be suffering the aftereffects of his indulgence the night before, but then he hadn't actually had that much. "Are you getting anywhere with the McCormick case?"

"I was thinking about asking Ziva to look at the pictures and see if anything jumps out at her, Boss," Tony said. "It's from before her time, so she'd be coming to it completely fresh."

"That's a good thought."

The kid was silent for a moment then, and Gibbs glanced over to see if he was wearing that smug grin he often got after even the slightest bit of praise. He wasn't. He looked pensive. "What are you going to do about your little unofficial investigation if we catch a case today?" he asked.

"You let me worry about that, DiNozzo," Gibbs said. "Keep working on the McCormick case as long as you think you've got something."

"Or until we catch a case."

Gibbs shrugged an acknowledgment of that. When they reached the office, they went to their own desks and DiNozzo started straight to work. They were a little early, but Ziva and McGee were at their desks. McGee was still wearing the clothes he'd had on yesterday, but Ziva had clearly freshened herself up a bit.

Before Gibbs had been at his desk five minutes, a little box appeared on his screen. It appeared to be from McGee, and it said, "Check your e-mail, Boss." When he looked up, McGee wasn't looking at him. Grimacing, Gibbs opened his e-mail and found the one from McGee. The most recent one from McGee, actually. He appeared to write a lot of e-mails. Pursing his lips, he scanned the message. When all the unnecessary jargon was dropped out, the gist of it was that Tony's cell phone records showed no signs of a stalker. All the calls to and from cops could be traced to cases, and no one had called more frequently than seemed normal. Same on his landline. Gibbs glanced up at DiNozzo, who was watching Ziva go over the photographs at his computer. Evidently, he'd taken the time to cover the bruise again today. Gibbs wondered if Ziva had noticed it yet.

Gibbs was contemplating how he was going to talk to McGee when the box flashed in the bar at the bottom of the screen. He clicked it and saw that McGee had sent him a new message. "Type in the empty box at the bottom," it said.

Sighing, Gibbs began to type. "Did you get the surveillance footage?"

"On its way. Any more instructions?"

"Can you break into his e-mail account?"

"NCIS?"

"Personal."

McGee didn't respond, and Gibbs looked up to see him blinking at the screen. He stood up and walked towards the elevator to autopsy and Abby's lab. After a moment, Gibbs followed him and they got into the elevator together. Gibbs hit the emergency stop. "Yes, McGee?"

"Boss, you probably shouldn't give illegal orders in IM. They can be captured and read later."

"I see," Gibbs said. Presumably, IM was what the little box was called. He returned to essentials. "Can you do it?"

"Sure, Boss," McGee said. Gibbs set the elevator moving again. "But why?" McGee asked, and Gibbs closed his eyes. He hit the emergency stop again. "I'm sorry, Boss, I'll do whatever you say, of course, but why are we investigating Tony? He says he's not accused of anything."

"He's not," Gibbs said. "And it's not really Tony we're investigating." Scowling, he contemplated the fact that McGee would be considerably more effective at his job if he knew what he was looking for. "It's someone stalking him."

"Tony's got a stalker?" McGee said. Gibbs nodded impatiently. "And he doesn't know who it is?"

"Oh, he knows," Gibbs said. He turned the emergency stop off again.

"Then what's her name? Why are we –"

The doors opened and Gibbs looked at McGee. "Tony won't tell us his name."

"His name?" McGee repeated. "His?"

Gibbs walked up and stood right in front of McGee. In a very quiet voice, he said, "Yes, his. You got a problem with that, McGee?"

"No Boss," McGee said quickly, looking alarmed.

"Then get back to work."

When they returned to their desks, Tony was on the phone, talking earnestly to someone, and Ziva was at her desk. Evidently she had seen something that got DiNozzo's synapses firing. McGee settled down and started working, and Gibbs closed the silly window he'd been talking to him in.

DiNozzo hung up the phone. Gibbs looked up as his senior agent grabbed his backpack and shouldered it. "Where are you going?" he asked.

"To question Midshipman McCormick."

"Midshipman McCormick?" McGee repeated in a puzzled voice. The case had concerned a Marine colonel, one David McCormick, who'd been found dead in his backyard. Suspicion had fallen on the wife, but without real evidence, the case had gone cold. There had been no midshipman involved.

"The daughter?" Gibbs asked.

"She's attending the Naval Academy, now," DiNozzo said with a nod. "I've made an appointment with her CO to talk to her."

Gibbs nodded slowly. "Ziva, go with him," he said, and she grabbed her own gear. The look DiNozzo threw him was schizophrenic. Gibbs never sent any of them out alone if he could help it, and Tony knew that. Nevertheless, Tony was wondering if Ziva was his minder. Truth be told, it was a little of both. He needed McGee here to do the computer searches, and he trusted Ziva's skills to keep Tony safe in the field.

"Actually, Ziva, give me a minute. I want to grab something." DiNozzo dropped his backpack and went to the rear elevator.

McGee leaned forward. "Ziva, what did you see?" he asked once the elevator had gone.

She shook her head. "Nothing. I was looking over his shoulder at the photographs when he suddenly said, 'That's it! Why did I not see it before?' and forgot all about me."

Gibbs grinned. Competition. That was really what made his team tick. Each one of them trying to get the best atta boy from the boss. DiNozzo had needed the extra edge of knowing that Ziva might find the answer first to sharpen his mind so he could see past his blinders. Whatever worked.

Tony came back with a bag from the evidence locker, tucked it into his pack and hurried straight for the elevator. Ziva had to run to catch up. Gibbs watched them go with an indulgent smile, then he started looking through the names, records and photographs of the men Ziva had turned up.

Damn the boy. Why couldn't he just tell him what he needed to know? Then he could put the fear of Gibbs into the bastard, and it would be over and done with.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Tony let Ziva drive. He wasn't in the mood to argue, and he knew she liked to be behind the wheel. After all, her driving had improved. A couple years in the states – and a number of accidents – had mandated that. Besides, letting her drive gave him the opportunity to consider approaches to Midshipman McCormick. He didn't seriously suspect her, but if the answer to his question was what he thought it was, she had a lot to explain.

"What is going on, Tony?" Ziva asked.

Tony glanced over at her to make sure her eyes were on the road. She had an alarming habit of turning to face the person she talked to while she was driving. "I guess I didn't give you many details of the case. A little over three years ago, Marine Colonel David McCormick was found dead in his backyard. He'd had his neck broken in the tried and true Marine Corps style. His wife had been having an affair with another officer, but he proved to have a verifiable alibi. There were suspicions that Mrs. McCormick had hired someone, but we could never substantiate it. I think his daughter knew more than she let on."

Ziva nodded. "I see. Thank you, but that is not what I was asking about."

"It's not?"

"I wish to know what is going on with you. Why is Gibbs investigating police officers? Why are you hiding a bruise on your face under make up?"

Tony kept his hand away from his face with an effort. "I didn't feel like answering a bunch of questions," he said. "You remember all the ribbing I took on that black eye last month?" She nodded. "I didn't want to deal with it again."

"You did not hide the black eye." He shrugged and checked his phone. To make himself look busy, he sent a random text message to Abby about the concert she'd invited him to. He didn't want to think about the black eye. He certainly didn't want to talk about it. Ziva's silence was heavy. "You could not hide it, could you?" she asked finally.

He grimaced and looked out the window. "No, I couldn't."

Looked like they were going to make pretty good time today, which was a happy thing because that limited the amount of time he'd spend alone with a Mossad trained interrogator. When he felt her hand on his sleeve, he pulled his arm away, but not before she managed to slide the knit shirt's cuff up a few inches, revealing the mottled bruising. He tugged the sleeve down and clenched his teeth.

"Who did that to you, Tony?" she asked expectantly, the smothered anger in her tone surprising him.

"It's personal," he said irritably, looking away.

"I am your partner," she said angrily. "Does that not mean something?"

Tony closed his eyes and counted to ten. "I haven't told Gibbs. If I haven't told Gibbs, what makes you think I'll tell you?" She was silent, and Tony glanced at her to see if she'd gotten the message. She was looking at him, and there was a slow-moving big rig ahead of them that she didn't seem to see. "The road, Ziva! The road?"

Letting out a curse he couldn't understand, she turned and changed lanes to avoid slamming into the truck. Honks behind them expressed other drivers' irritation at being cut off. "Very well," she said. "Do not talk to me, but I will find out sooner or later. Would it not be better to simply tell me rather than making me discover it for myself?"

"Think of it as an opportunity to brush up your investigative skills," he muttered.

"I would much rather have my partner be straight with me," Ziva replied. "I have plenty of opportunities to perfect my skills."

Tony wished she'd stop harping on the partner thing. Kate had never done that. "Do you tell us everything about your life?" he asked. "Do you tell _me_ everything about your life?"

"Well . . . no," she replied.

"For instance, I still don't know how you got those friction burns on your knees."

"Friction burns . . ." She shook her head. "What are you talking about, Tony?"

"When we were in that shipping container, you told me you might tell me if we lived long enough. Still haven't heard a word."

"You remember that?" Ziva asked incredulously.

Tony shrugged and tapped his temple. "Like an elephant up here."

"What, big, slow, wrinkled and gray?" she asked, her voice lilting with amusement.

He rolled his eyes. "We have an old saying, elephants never forget."

"I see."

"And what about that time when you came in to work with your feet wrapped in bloody rags? You didn't explain that."

"I believe you asked me not to."

He shook his head. "The point is there are lots of things you don't tell me about what goes on in your life," Tony said. "Personal things. Maybe you know I'd rag you on them, or maybe you're embarrassed by them, or maybe they're just nobody's business but your own." His volume rose somewhat on that last remark, and he closed his teeth with a snap. He didn't need to be yelling at people.

Ziva shrugged irritably. "Very well, I will not ask."

"Thank you."

"I think you should tell me, but I will not ask."

He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the headrest. "Think I'll catch forty winks."

Ziva was silent for a moment, then said, "Why would you wish to catch winks? And why forty?"

"Ziva, I'm taking a nap."

"Then why not just say that?"

"I did. Can we stop now?"

She fell silent, and he really did drift off for awhile. He had actually just been trying to get her to shut up, but he'd gone short of sleep on too many nights in the recent past. It was catching up with him. When she spoke, it jerked him awake. "We are almost there."

He sat forward, trying to blink away the muzziness that tempted him to lie back again. He was glad she'd woken him before they'd reached their destination or he'd have been doing this while going through the halls of the Naval Academy. Not really the image he wanted to project.

When she had parked the car, she said, "Turn towards me."

"What?" he asked, complying.

"You have marred your make-up. You may wish either to remove it entirely or touch it up."

He pulled the visor down and examined his cheek in the mirror. Most of it was gone, and what was left was obviously make-up. He sighed. There were midshipmen and naval officers moving around nearby, and he didn't really want to be witnessed putting on make-up before going in for an interview. Again, not the image he wanted to project. Grimacing, he pulled a handkerchief out of his bag and wiped off what remained of the make up. It wasn't a particularly impressive bruise, just noticeable. He turned towards Ziva. "Better?" he asked.

"Much. Who hit you?"

"I did, actually," Tony said truthfully, and Ziva's eyes narrowed. "Let's go."

Midshipman Diane McCormick was waiting for them in a small conference room. She rose when they came in and smiled nervously. "Agent DiNozzo, right? Is this about my father?"

"It is," Tony said, indicating that she should sit down and joining her at the table. "I want you to tell me again where you were when your father was killed."

Her eyebrows went up, he thought he detected a hint of alarm in her eyes. "I told you and Agent Todd that I was at my friend Brianna's house."

Tony nodded. This could be nothing. Or it could be vitally important. He reached into his backpack and pulled out the evidence he'd fetched from the locker and placed it on the table between them. Still in its plastic bag, the broken knife looked sad and abandoned. When he saw McCormick's eyes, he knew he'd guessed right. Taking a deep breath to quell the triumph he felt, he said, "Do you want to amend your statement in any way, Midshipman?"

Diane McCormick reached out and touched the folding knife through the bag. "How did you know?"

Tony shrugged modestly. "Let's try this again," he said gently. "Where were you when your father was killed?"

The girl looked down and took a deep breath. "I was there," she said to her folded hands. "I saw it happen."

Tony blinked. He hadn't expected that. "Why didn't you tell us that then?"

McCormick swallowed and looked up. "I was terrified," she said. "I didn't know the man, and it was dark. I'd never have recognized him."

"Okay," Tony said, keeping his tone calm and even. "Why don't you start at the beginning and tell us what happened?"

She nodded and glanced uneasily at Ziva before starting her story. "I was coming home from cheer practice. I'd loaned my knife to one of my friends, and he'd broken it trying to pry a box open. I . . . I'd been trying to get up my nerve to admit it to my dad. I knew he'd start using words like responsibility and disappointment, and I . . . it took a couple of days. I knew I didn't want to approach him with Mom around, because she hadn't wanted him to give me the knife in the first place."

"The knife was a gift from your father?" Ziva asked.

"He knew I wanted to follow in his footsteps," McCormick said, flushing. "So, I knew Dad would be in the backyard when I got home. It was just after seven, and he always went out for a smoke after the six o'clock news. Mom didn't like him to smoke inside. I went down the passage between our house and the one next door and found the gate open. It was usually locked, so I was kind of surprised. I'd been messing with the knife in my hands as I walked, but it was cold so I had gloves on." Tony nodded. That made sense as the only fingerprints on the knife had been badly smudged. "I pushed past the gate and saw my dad arguing with some guy. I couldn't really hear what they were saying, and all I could tell you about the guy was that he was a little taller than Dad, and a lot broader. Dad said something louder, it sounded like, 'Absolutely not,' and then he turned his back on the guy. Then, the minute Dad's back was turned, the guy reached up and snapped his neck."

"Then what happened?" Tony asked quietly.

"I dropped the knife and let out a . . . I was freaked. The man turned and ran towards me. I started to run but my coat caught on the gate and before I could get loose, he was on me. He put his hand over my mouth and told me not to tell anyone what I'd seen and he left. When he was gone, I went over to Dad's body, but he was . . . you saw it." Tony nodded. No one could live with his head at that angle. "I went to Brianna's house and pretended that it didn't happen."

"So Brianna lied for you."

"Sort of," McCormick said.

"Sort of?" Ziva asked. "Either she did or she did not."

"She did, but she doesn't know it." McCormick shrugged. "She was rocking out to her music when I got there. I told her I'd been there since six-thirty, and she believed me."

"Do you think –"

"I called, once, to tell you guys, but . . ." She glanced at Ziva.

"But what?"

"It was about two months after." Tony glanced down involuntarily at the bag, which was labeled in Kate's handwriting. He noticed the date and thought he knew where she was going. "I called the number on Agent Todd's card and asked for her. I think it was you who answered." She nodded at Ziva. "She said Agent Todd was dead, and it was too much for me. I couldn't deal with it. I hung up and . . ." She shook her head violently. "I didn't know what to do."

"It's okay, Diane," Tony said.

Tears had begun to overflow despite her best efforts. Ziva slipped out and returned several minutes later with the girl's CO and her roommate. Tony went out into the hall with Captain Penelli, leaving McCormick with her roommate and Ziva. "What's this about?" Penelli asked, clearly a little disturbed by the fact that Tony had apparently driven McCormick to tears.

"Were you aware that her father was murdered two years ago?" Tony asked, and Penelli shook his head. "The case has never been solved, but Midshipman McCormick has evidence that she was too frightened to bring forward at the time. Unfortunately, that meant we had to take her through the experience again."

"I see," Captain Penelli said. "Have you got everything you need?"

"I'm afraid not. We're going to need her to work with a sketch artist when she's calmed down a bit. We'll be taking her to NCIS Headquarters."

Penelli nodded and went in to talk with McCormick. Ziva emerged and raised her eyebrows at him. "That was good work, Tony. Have you called Gibbs?"

"Right." He grabbed his cell phone. When Gibbs answered, he said, "We're bringing Midshipman McCormick back with us, Boss. She witnessed the murder."

"She what?" Gibbs sounded startled.

"It was her knife at the scene, not the killer's."

Gibbs was silent for a moment. "I see. That was a long shot."

"I know," Tony said, biting his lip. "But I didn't think it would do any harm."

"Good work, DiNozzo."

The accolade felt as good as ever, and he was too used to it being followed by the click of Gibbs' hanging up to find that distressing. He still had 'it,' whatever 'it' was. He pocketed his phone and started making the arrangements necessary to liberate a midshipman from the academy for a few hours.

* * *

Just after one, an envelope was delivered to McGee's desk. Gibbs felt like he was drowning in a sea of bad cops, so he didn't pay much attention. It was several minutes later when McGee spoke. "This is it, Boss. The security footage."

Gibbs looked up and saw McGee start to put it into the DVD player. "Don't. Abby's lab."

McGee looked startled, but he followed Gibbs automatically when he headed towards the elevator. The young man didn't always think things through. Showing the footage of Tony's last confrontation with his stalker on the plasma in the squad room would breach Tony's privacy more thoroughly than even their all too public scene had done yesterday.

"Gibbs!" Abby greeted gleefully. "What are you doing here? I have nothing for you. Is your radar not working?"

"We have something we need to watch," Gibbs said, and her eyebrows went up. "McGee?"

The youngest of his agents scurried forward and popped the disk into the machine, stepping back with the remote. The time code at the lower right of the screen put it at about 1600 hours. "Take it about two hours forward," Gibbs said. "Tony made his escape around five-thirty." McGee snuck a look at him and Gibbs feigned not to notice. He'd been pissed when he found that no one had any clear idea of when Tony had left, just that it had happened while Ziva was in the head.

The images sped up and only slowed down when the clock reached 17:45. McGee kept it going at about double time till Tony's leased Audi turned up. Tony got out and started towards the elevator. The angle wasn't the greatest – above, behind and slightly to the right. A figure in dark clothing came out from between two tall SUVs to Tony's right, and the agent slowed to a stop.

"Unless he turns and looks into the camera, I'm not going to be able to get much out of this, Gibbs," Abby said.

"In a minute, Abbs," he replied, walking towards the large screen in the lab. "This is the first time I've seen it."

The man was huge. He was a good five inches taller than Tony, and broad without giving the feeling of being soft. He walked right up to Tony, into his space. Gibbs half-expected to see his agent take a step back, but Tony held his ground. The two men spoke for a few moments, then Tony tried to slip past him to the elevators. The man turned to walk with him and Tony stopped again. When he started to put his hand on Tony's shoulder, Tony evaded him. After several more moments, he and Tony headed towards the stairs where they disappeared. Gibbs gazed at the empty garage pensively. It did confirm Tony's story so far as it went.

"Who's Gigantor?" Abby asked.

"That's the question, Abby," Gibbs said.

"Well, his sheer size ought to narrow the search a bit," McGee said, running the image back till Gigantor was side by side with Tony.

"Abby, do you – my God, is that our stalker?"

Gibbs turned to see Ducky staring at the screen. "It appears so," he said.

"He is quite large enough to be very intimidating," Ducky remarked. "Abby, have you seen Mr. Palmer recently?"

"Nope," Abby said. "Has he vanished on you again, Ducky?"

Ducky shrugged. "The boy moves with unexpected speed sometimes, and sometimes he's like molasses. I shall have to speak to him about it." He walked forward and peered at the screen. "Yes, Jethro, I'd say this man could easily . . ." He paused, glancing at the audience. ". . . do what I described," he finished circumspectly.

Gibbs nodded. "Abby, is there –"

"Fuck!"

Gibbs turned and saw that DiNozzo had come in behind them. He was rigid, staring at the screen. Diane McCormick was right behind him, and she stared at DiNozzo with alarm. "Agent DiNozzo?" she said worriedly.

Tony's eyes dropped from the monitor to the faces of the people in the room. He paled and abruptly left, disregarding both McCormick and Ziva as he all but ran out of the lab.

"Is something wrong?" Midshipman McCormick asked, and her voice was a bit tremulous.

Gibbs stifled a curse. "Stay," he ordered his team as he hurried past McCormick and Ziva after DiNozzo. The elevator was closing as he reached it, and he could see DiNozzo inside. He slammed his fist against the door then looked at the lights. Down. He took the stairs two at a time and reached the next floor just in time to see the doors to autopsy closing. He hurried in and found Tony leaning over the sink. He looked up as Gibbs entered and dropped his eyes again to the drain.

"Hey, Boss," he said. His voice was flat and his body practically vibrated with tension.

"Hey, DiNozzo." Gibbs walked over and leaned against the end of one of the autopsy tables. "That was quite a reaction."

"Why can't you leave it alone?" Tony asked without turning.

"If McGee showed up with bruises like yours, would you leave it alone?" Gibbs asked mildly, curious to see what DiNozzo would say, to see if he would recognize the contradiction.

Tony's head sank, which Gibbs took to mean that he got the point. "I'm not McGee," he said in a low, angry voice. Okay, he got the point, but he was still fighting. Gibbs sighed.

"What does that mean, Tony?" he asked. "That you're less worthy of help? Or that you wouldn't expect McGee to be able to handle something like this on his own?"

"I don't like coming into Abby's lab and finding pieces of my life up on the screen," DiNozzo said, predictably changing the subject. "The last time that happened, I wound up in jail for murder."

"You're not under investigation this time, DiNozzo," Gibbs said. "You –"

The door opened and Ducky walked in. When Director Shepard came in behind him, Gibbs bit down on the angry diatribe he'd been about to launch at the medical examiner.

"Jethro, Agent Gabriel Maitland is dead. I need you and your team on the case immediately."

Tony stood up straight. "Gabe is dead?" he asked blankly. Gibbs glanced over at him. News like this was bound to hit DiNozzo hard.

Jenny nodded. "Found in his car. I'll see that Midshipman McCormick gets back to the Naval Academy when Abby's done with her. I need your team, and Ducky and Palmer on the scene five minutes ago."

Gibbs nodded once and gathered Tony to him with a glance. "Where is it?"

"Saint Charles, Maryland. His home," Jenny said, handing him a slip of paper.

Gibbs collected Ziva and McGee, and saw DiNozzo reassuring McCormick out of the corner of his eye as they left. "DiNozzo!" he called.

"Coming, Boss!" DiNozzo said. Gibbs had him drive, since he knew DiNozzo already knew the way.

The crime scene was unpleasant. To all intents and purposes, it appeared that Agent Maitland had killed himself. He was found in the driver's seat of his car, in the garage of his home, and the car was on. The engine had stalled out when it ran out of gas, but that was long after Maitland had died.

"I was supposed to pick him up at one," Agent Travers said, running his hand through his hair till it stood up straight. "The front door was locked, but I went around back to look in the windows and saw him in the car. I broke the window, but . . ."

Gibbs nodded. "Did you touch anything?"

"Just the doorknob and the car door. It was closed when I got here."

"It was unlocked?"

Travers nodded. "Yeah."

"Have you been to the house before?"

"Once or twice, never for long. Just to pick him up." He shook his head, looking miserable. "I don't know why he'd do a thing like this."

"We don't know that he did," Gibbs said, and he wrapped up the interview, sending Travers back to NCIS headquarters. Sighing, he went inside. McGee was already working on the man's computer. Tony was in the garage, making sketches, and Ziva was taking photographs.

Gibbs wandered the house, taking stock of the man. Everywhere in the house was evidence of family life. Photographs of two little girls gradually getting bigger decorated the hallway, toys lived in a bin in the family room, and there was a miniature tea table set for four in one of the bedrooms. Three stuffed animals and a doll sat at the table. "Where are his wife and daughters?" Gibbs asked. It was two o'clock on a Wednesday afternoon in August. There was no school, so one might expect that they'd have been home sometime during the day and would have noticed what had happened.

"Disney World," Tony said, coming into the living room from the kitchen, and Gibbs saw McGee look up from the computer in surprise. "He was supposed to join them there on Friday. He'd have been there now if that embezzlement case hadn't heated up."

"Did you know him well?" McGee asked.

"We hung out when I first came to work at NCIS," DiNozzo said. "Before he met Sheila and turned all family man overnight." He shrugged. "We talk from time to time." DiNozzo turned to Gibbs. "This wasn't suicide, Boss. We spoke on Monday, and he was fine, looking forward to leaving on Friday, earlier if he could get away. There is no way he killed himself."

"You know we'll look at the other possibilities first, DiNozzo," Gibbs said, and Tony nodded.

Gibbs went back out to the garage to see if Ducky had a time of death yet. The elderly medical examiner gave him a dry look. "I've barely gotten here, Jethro. Give me a moment."

"There was no note with the body," Ziva said.

"Was there anything else with the body?" Gibbs asked.

"His wallet, a business card in his shirt pocket for an exterminator, his wedding ring and some sort of class ring on the other hand."

Gibbs nodded. "Ducky?"

"I'd say about four a.m." Ducky sat back. "This reminds me of a case I dealt with in Edinborough. The young man in that case –"

Instead of cutting him off, Gibbs left him to it. Ziva and Palmer could listen. It would be good for them. DiNozzo was on the phone. "Yes, a locksmith. He should be there between three and five. Can you let him in for me? Thanks." He hung up and came to attention when he noticed Gibbs. "I didn't think we were likely to get there by three, Boss."

"Ya think, DiNozzo?" Gibbs hated cases like this one. If it was suicide, it would be a blow to the morale of every agent involved, and it would destroy his family. If it wasn't suicide, then there was a murderer out there who not only didn't value the man's life, but didn't care much for his reputation either. "Anything on the computer, McGee?"

"There are three e-mails in his sent folder. It looks like he keeps it pretty cleaned out. One is to his wife, telling her when he should arrive at the hotel on Thursday night, one is to his brother asking him to please mow the lawn for him over the weekend so his wife won't be annoyed when she gets back, and the third is to Zap It Exterminators complaining that the mice are back."

"Those don't sound like the e-mails of a man on the verge of suicide," Gibbs commented.

"Boss, there are two glasses in the sink," DiNozzo said. "It might not mean anything, but –"

"Bag and tag them, DiNozzo."

They worked the crime scene like any other, and if Gibbs was more than usually aware of DiNozzo's mood, that could be laid down to the fact that the victim had been a friend. They finished up, cordoned the place off, and were just getting ready to get in the truck when Tony got another phone call. His expression went very grim, and he took a few steps away. Gibbs listened hard, concerned that it might be Gigantor.

"Yes, I know," DiNozzo said in a soft voice. "I know. Sheila . . . yes, it's him. I saw him. Yeah, my team caught the case. I know, and no, it hasn't been ruled suicide. Anyone who told you that was jumping the gun. It does look like that, but we don't make assumptions. Yeah, he told me. He also told me that he didn't blame you. I know, Sheila. Calm down. Your girls need you. They're far away from home and . . . yes, I know. They need Mom to be there for them right now . . . good . . . I'll see you when you get back. I've got to go. Yes. Take care."

Gibbs did his best to seem as though he hadn't just listened to DiNozzo's half of that conversation, but from Tony's expression, he evidently didn't succeed. "Let's go, DiNozzo," he said.

* * *

_Author's note: Much, much more to come._


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Tony had been wishing for a case since yesterday at approximately the moment Gibbs had ordered him to roll up his sleeves, and now they had one. He was experienced enough not to blame himself for the death. Whoever had murdered Gabe hadn't done it because of his wish. Still, he felt like a jerk because when he'd seen the director come into autopsy, he'd been glad to have a case.

He was aware of the way Gibbs was watching him, the swiftness with which he'd turned to listen to the phone call. Even with a case regarding the suspicious death of another agent, Gibbs wasn't letting Tony's issue go. "We'll need to talk to Chuck," Tony said. "But embezzlers don't usually go in for murder."

"What about that man who tried to kill Abby?" Ziva asked.

"He didn't try to kill Abby," Tony replied. "He tried to _have _her killed, and she was actively testifying in a case against him. I mean, Gabe was just one of several investigators involved in the case. Why kill him specifically?"

"If it does not have to do with his case, then what does it have to do with?" Ziva asked.

"That's what we've got to figure out. Tony, I want you to talk to Agent Walther," Gibbs said. Chuck Walther was the lead agent on the embezzlement case. "Ziva, find out who Agent Maitland's friends were around the office and get a feel for his mood in the last few days."

"Yes, Boss," Tony replied.

"Yes, Gibbs," Ziva said.

They broke up at the elevator, Tony heading for the squad room Gabe's team had been centered in. No one was at their desks, so he checked around and got Chuck's cell phone number. He called him and arranged to meet him at a coffee shop downtown. His team was talking to some Pentagon officials, but he said he'd send Travers and Mayfield on to handle the next interview on their own.

Borrowing an agency car, Tony drove out to the coffee shop and found a spot in a nearby parking garage. Chuck was already there when he walked in, and he'd ordered Tony a coffee. Nothing fancy, just black. Tony doctored it the way he liked it and said, "How are you doing?"

Chuck shook his head. "I'm not sure. It's not really real yet. Mike said he killed himself."

"We haven't determined that yet," Tony replied, wondering if it had been Mike Travers who'd called Sheila. "You know NCIS policy."

"Right, but is there any evidence that it's murder?" Chuck asked.

"Actually, I need to ask you a few questions," Tony said, and Chuck's eyebrows went up. "I'll be needing a copy of your case file, but can you just give me a feel for how your case is going? I know that on Monday Gabe wasn't expecting to be able to leave until Friday, but he told Sheila he'd be getting there on Thursday night."

Chuck shrugged. "I felt bad about screwing up the family vacation," he said. "If we don't have it resolved by Thursday morning, it's not likely to get anywhere before Monday anyway."

"Okay," Tony said. "Have you noticed anything odd about Gabe's mood in the last few days?"

"I don't know," Chuck said. "Not really. He's seemed totally himself, though he . . ." Chuck paused thoughtfully. "We were up half the night last night, going over some records we'd just got hold of. He might just have been tired, but . . ."

"What, Chuck?" Tony said. "You know anything could be important."

"He seemed a little withdrawn last night towards the end of the night. You know Gabe, he's always kind of chatty, always making jokes. He just wound down last night. I kind of assumed he was tired, but it could have been something else."

"Did he say anything?"

"No."

"Do you know what records he was looking at when he started 'winding down' as you put it?"

Chuck gave him a file number, and they parted. Tony watched him drive off, then walked to his car where he found an unexpected figure leaning against the trunk. Tony stopped about ten feet off, but Brody had already seen him. Besides, he didn't have anywhere to retreat to. That was his car, and he needed to get back to the office. The only other option he'd have would be to catch a cab, and that would be difficult to explain to the motor pool.

He walked the rest of the way up. "Aren't you supposed to be at work?" Tony asked.

"Day off," Brody replied. "So, you're meeting guys in coffee shops instead of bars these days, huh? How very genteel."

Tony grimaced. "That was work," he said. "And if you don't mind, this is not a good day. Another agent – a friend – was killed, and we caught the case. I need to get back to work." He walked on past Brody, pulling the key out of his pocket to open the car door. Before he could get the key into the lock, Brody grabbed his upper arm and spun him around to face him. Tony lost his grip on the key, but he didn't see where it went. "Brody, I don't have time for this," Tony snarled, jerking his arm back, trying to get loose.

Tony had parked next to one of the cement pillars that dotted the garage, in a kind of niche that looked like an afterthought. It had the benefit of being near the elevator, but he had cause to regret the choice as Brody dragged him around to the other side of the pillar from the rest of the garage and pushed him up against it, forcing his knee between Tony's legs again and holding him firmly by the upper arms, no doubt adding new and exciting bruises to his collection. Tony tried and failed to get free. His gun was digging into his back, and Brody was placing uncomfortable pressure on his groin. This was not good. In this spot, only someone who actually walked into the niche would be able to see them, and since there was only space for three cars, there were only two people who might have reason to come in.

"Are you crazy?" he demanded angrily. "Let go of me." He'd really prefer to get out of this without a fight that might cause injuries that they'd both have trouble explaining.

Brody gazed at him for a long moment. "How did you get out of your building this morning without me seeing you?" he asked, and Tony gulped, appalled. "I waited for three hours in range of your car, and finally abandoned it around nine."

"Brody, this is nuts," Tony said. "You've got to stop following me."

"I knew you'd be at the Navy Yard, so I waited outside the front gate. I saw you go out with that pretty partner of yours and followed you to Annapolis."

Tony shook his head. "Brody, you have to stop. We're done."

"Nobody walks away from me, Tony," Brody growled, leaning forward. "I say when we're done, and we're not done yet. Not by a long shot."

Tony had had enough. He tried to break Brody's grip on his arms, but the other man's hands just tightened. Tony winced and brought his knee up. It was humiliating to use such a girly tactic, but it had proven effective last time. Not this time. Brody blocked the blow and leaned in closer to Tony, limiting the force he could put into a second attempt. Tony tried to hook his free foot around Brody's ankle to pull his leg away with minimal success, and Brody jerked him forward just enough to make it possible to slam him back. Tony grunted as his head hit the wall "Brody, I have to get back to work," he grated through clenched teeth.

"Yeah, your dead agent." Brody shrugged. "I heard he committed suicide."

"What?" Tony exclaimed, staring at him. "Where?"

"I was in a car down the block. I heard some guy talking on his cell phone."

Tony blinked. "What did he say?"

"That a guy named Gabe had killed himself, what of it?"

"Gabe didn't kill himself," Tony said.

"You got evidence?" Brody asked.

"Not yet, just . . . I knew him really well. He didn't kill himself."

Brody's eyes narrowed. "Just how well did you know him?" he asked, his tone suspicious.

Tony stared at him in shock. "You aren't seriously jealous of a dead guy, are you?" Brody's eyes narrowed still further. "That's sick, Brody. Now let me go." His forearms were free. There wasn't much he could do, but, sliding his right arm behind his back, he could just about reach his pistol. Not that shooting Brody would be a great solution. It would just bring up an entirely different set of problems, ones he didn't need during a difficult case. Brody sensed the movement anyway and shifted his grip, pulling Tony's arm out from behind his back. Tony succeeded in getting his left arm free and dug his thumb into Brody's throat. "God damn it, Brody, I have work to do." Brody leaned back, grabbed Tony's wrist and slammed it back against the wall above Tony's head. He brought the right wrist up to join it and held them both in his left hand. Tony was reminded unpleasantly of Monday night's antics. He didn't need this. "Brody, this has gone far enough!" he said, glaring at the other man.

"Not nearly far enough," Brody murmured, his eyes hot with passion. Now that he had both of Tony's arms immobilized again, he leaned in and tried to kiss him. Tony turned his head away, and Brody followed, kissing the corner of his mouth. His right hand had dropped lower and was kneading Tony's butt.

"Brody, get your hands off me," Tony ground out.

Brody chuckled, and brought his hand up to Tony's chin, pulling his face around front. "Kiss me, Tony," he said.

Tony tried to knee him again, but he couldn't get much force behind the blow, and it only made Brody grunt. The other man grabbed his hair and held his head steady while he pressed a kiss to Tony's lips. Tony kept his mouth closed and tried to still the very real fear rising in his gut. He couldn't get away this time. He didn't think Brody would go all the way in a parking garage, not where they could be caught at any moment, but Gibbs had asked how far things would have gone Monday night if they hadn't been in public, and Tony thought he knew the answer now. He took a deep breath when Brody turned his attention to his neck, his hand dropping to fondle Tony's groin. "Brody, you can't do this," he said in a low, urgent voice, trying to ignore the unwanted intimate touch. "Someone could come to pick up his car. We could be seen."

Brody took his earlobe between his teeth. "I will see you later, Tony. I don't care what you say, we are not done."

With that, he released Tony and walked away like nothing had happened. Tony leaned back against the pillar, made sure his clothes were straight, and tried to gather himself. After a moment or so, he pushed away from the pillar and looked around for the car key. It had skittered away underneath the parked car on the other side of the pillar, of course. Tony was forced to go down on his hands and knees and stretch his arm out all the way under the car, and even then he could barely reach it. His sleeve wound up covered with dirt and old grease from the underside of the car, and his temper was fraying badly. He got into the agency car and used the rearview mirror to check for any visible signs of his altercation with Brody. There was nothing, but he stopped in a gas station restroom on his way back to the office to wash his face and ear.

Once he'd turned the car in, he went to Chuck's desk to find the file that the other agent had told him about. Gibbs was already there, looking through Gabe's desk. He looked up as Tony approached and took in the dirtied up sleeve. "What happened to you?"

Tony had been contemplating his options on the drive back. Telling Gibbs about Brody's latest attack would only serve to distract from the case, and with another agent dead, Tony didn't want to do that. "I tripped, dropped the keys, and they fell under a car. I had to dig them out."

He should have known better. Gibbs stood up and walked over to him. "DiNozzo?"

"What?" Tony asked innocently. "I need to pick up a file that Gabe was working on."

Gibbs looked like he was about to say something, but his cell phone rang. Saved by the bell, Tony thought as Gibbs answered it. "Gibbs." Pause. "All right, we're on our way." Gibbs closed his phone and said, "Abby's got something for us." He stood for a moment, looking into Tony's eyes, and Tony knew the issue hadn't been dropped, only shelved. Then Gibbs turned and led the way to the elevator. Tony half-expected him to stop the elevator halfway down, but he didn't.

"I hate it when I'm longing for a case so bad and then we get one and it turns out to be something like this," Abby said when they came in. "Tony, I know you and Gabe were friends. I'm sorry."

Tony bit his lip and grimaced when he found that it was tender. "What have you got?" he asked in what he hoped was a normal tone.

"Fingerprints on these two glasses." She gestured to them on the table sitting next to a half full bottle of whiskey. "They contained scotch, both of them, from this bottle." She picked one up in her gloved hands. "The prints on this glass are also on the bottle. Those are Gabe's, which makes sense. I'm running the other prints now."

"Anything else?"

"Oh good, you haven't been to Ducky first," Abby said, and Tony prepared for another digression. Abby could be almost as bad as Ducky when it came to digressions, but hers were at least entertaining. "I always hate it when you go there first because I feel unloved, and because he steals my thunder. You get here and you already know half of what I've got to tell you."

"The evidence, Abby?" Gibbs asked with mild impatience.

She picked up an adjustable wrench. "This was found in the garage, which at first blush, seems perfectly reasonable. Where else would you keep a wrench? It's clearly Gabe's, it has a tag that says Maitland on it plain as day." She demonstrated the tag.

"Are there prints on it?"

"No, Gibbs, it's clean."

"Then what good is –"

"You don't understand Gibbs," Abby said eagerly. "It's completely clean. It was in this toolbox, lying on top of a bunch of other tools, all of which have fingerprints all over them. Gabe's, his wife's – she's a teacher so her prints are on file – and little tiny fingerprints which I'm guessing belong to his daughters." Tony darted a look at Gibbs and saw the slight flicker that betrayed emotion. Abby held out the wrench proudly. "This one has no fingerprints on it anywhere."

"That is something," Gibbs said.

"And," Abby said, "there is a tiny little bit of blood in the screw part here."

"And?"

"And it is Gabe's blood type, and I'm having it tested for DNA. Not that it will help us much if it matches. Gabe's tools, Gabe's blood. It could have gotten there at any time."

"Good work, Abby," Gibbs said, and he turned to leave.

Tony started to follow him, then paused. "Did Diane McCormick do okay?"

"DiNozzo!" Gibbs called, and Tony grimaced.

"I'll tell you later," she said as he hurried out.

In the elevator, Gibbs said, "I see you took off the make-up on your cheek."

"I screwed it up and there was neither time nor place to fix it at the academy," Tony said.

Gibbs studied his face. "What about the ones on your chin? You planning to cover those, too?"

Tony's mouth opened, but he didn't know what to say. The doors slid apart and Gibbs started forward. Tony followed, peering into reflective surfaces as he passed, trying to get a look at what he meant. Just as Ducky looked up, Tony took up a thoughtful pose, cupping his chin in his hand to conceal whatever Gibbs had seen.

Then he realized that he was standing two feet from Gabe's body where it lay naked on one of the tables with its ribs spread wide. It disturbed him even though he knew it was necessary. Seeing the bodies of people he'd never met until they were dead in this condition was bad enough, when it was people he knew, people he cared about, it was different. Two years ago he had deliberately avoided autopsy until he knew Ducky had finished with Kate.

"Jethro, I was just going to call you. I've found something that makes this look very bad."

"It didn't look bad before, Duck?" Gibbs asked.

"Of course that's not what I meant, Jethro. I just . . . I'm afraid we can rule out suicide. I've discovered a small fracture at the base of the skull."

"Is that the cause of death?"

"Oh, no, carbon monoxide poisoning was most definitely the cause of death, but if this had gone untreated, it would have caused death in six to forty-eight hours, and he might not have realized how bad it was till very close to the end. The blow most certainly caused unconsciousness, and it happened very close to the time of death. Within a few hours."

"So you think he was unconscious when he was put in the car?"

"It's very likely, or he would have gotten out. " Gibbs rolled his eyes at Ducky's statement of the obvious. "Well, he certainly didn't hit himself in the back of the head." Ducky bent to the corpse, gesturing towards a small dent at the base of the skull. "Now, the blow is very distinctive. I will send a photo up to Abby, and if we can find the weapon, we can probably identify it. It's most likely –"

"An adjustable wrench," Gibbs said.

"Yes, how did you . . ." He trailed off and his eyebrow went up. "Abby?"

"Get that photo to Abby, Ducky," Gibbs said as he led the way out of autopsy. Tony followed him into the elevator and stood beside him.

"I need to get that file from –" He broke off when Gibbs hit the emergency stop. Neither of them spoke for a moment, then Tony cleared his throat. "Gibbs, we have a case."

"And you have bruises on your face that weren't there when you left. Unless you're going to tell me Agent Walther attacked you, I'm going to assume that you had another run in with your friend."

Tony closed his eyes. "We don't have time for this," he said resolutely. "I'm fine."

Gibbs turned on him, looming, which was a feat for a man two inches shorter. "You're fine?" he growled. "What part of fine encompasses the bruises turning up on the backs of your hands?"

Tony looked down at his hands and swallowed. He hadn't thought of that. He put his hands in his pockets. "Boss, Sheila, Madison and Amber need to know that whoever killed Gabe will pay for his death."

"And how effectively can you investigate Gabe's death if you're being physically assaulted while you're out interviewing people?"

Tony felt cornered. Gibbs was way too close and way too angry, and he backed into the wall of the elevator, hissing slightly as the back of his head made contact with the wall. Gibbs let out a muffled curse and hit the emergency stop again, then pressed the button to open the door. "Get out," he ordered.

"Gibbs . . ." Tony protested.

"You are being examined by Ducky again. You've been attacked twice in forty-eight hours. I need to know if you're up to the physical demands of your duties."

"I'm fine, Gibbs," Tony said. "Fit as a fiddle."

Gibbs put a hand on the center of the middle of his back. "Fine, th –" He broke off when Tony flinched away from him. "Now, Tony. Into autopsy now."

"There's a body in there, Gibbs. Open."

"And you are not spending another minute working this case until you prove to me you're fit to do so."

"I am not being examined in the same room with my dead, partially autopsied friend!" His voice broke as he said that, and he screwed his eyes shut against the reaction that was threatening to unman him. He put his back to the side wall of the elevator and slid down to sit on the floor with his knees against his chest. "I can't do it, Gibbs. I can't." The elevator doors slid shut, and Gibbs hit the emergency stop again, for which Tony was grateful. He didn't need random technicians or agents walking in on his meltdown.

Gibbs squatted down. "I can see that, DiNozzo," Gibbs said in a softer voice. "We'll come up with something else."

"I'm sorry, Boss," Tony said. "I don't know what I did to make him think I wanted this."

"Tony!" Gibbs exclaimed, sounding almost angry. Tony hunched smaller. Gibbs had a right to be pissed. He'd screwed up big this time.

He looked up. "I just want to work the case, Boss," he said. "I won't go anywhere alone, I'll . . . I'll tell you what happened after we're done, but I want to get through this case first."

Gibbs was silent for a long moment, then he did something Tony would never have expected. He put a hand on the floor and, using it as a pivot point, turned to sit down next to Tony. They were nearly touching, and Gibbs leaned slightly and shoved at him with his shoulder. "No, you'll tell me now."

Tony shook his head. "The case, Boss –"

"Important though it is, the death of an NCIS agent doesn't automatically take precedence over an assault on an NCIS agent," Gibbs said.

Tony thumped his head back against the wall. It hurt, but he needed the pain to stave off the tears that were looming. This whole week sucked, and all he wanted to do was give Sheila and the girls the justice they deserved. Gabe was a good guy, and it just wasn't fair. Why did people like Gabe, with wives and children and people who loved them, why did they get killed while people like Tony just stumbled from disaster to disaster, doing no good for anyone?

"DiNozzo?" Gibbs said, and he put a gentle hand on the back of Tony's neck, squeezing the way he had a time or two when he knew Tony was hurting. It broke through Tony's control, and the tears started flowing. Gibbs pulled him close and Tony let him, embarrassed as hell but not sure what he could do about it. Then, abruptly, the elevator doors opened, and he looked up to see Abby and a guy in mechanic coveralls staring down at them. He brought his hands up to cover his face.

"I tried to tell him!" Abby said ruefully. "Tony, are you okay?"

"But it was stuck," the technician said. "I heard this elevator's always getting stuck, so I –"

"Sorry Gibbs," Abby said. She swung in, punched one of the buttons, and the elevator doors closed again. Tony felt a laugh start in his chest. How ridiculous it must have looked to that guy, two men sitting on the floor of the stuck elevator, one crying, the other comforting.

"Well, I might as well give up," he said, choking on laughter and tears at the same time. "Just tell everyone I let a guy fuck me. My reputation is screwed now anyway."

"Abby will see to it he keeps his mouth shut, DiNozzo," Gibbs said.

"Right, she probably will," Tony said. Abby had a strange power over people. "Well, we'd better get back to work."

"DiNozzo," Gibbs said, and Tony bit his lip. "You're going to have to press charges against this guy."

Tony shook his head. "I don't have any proof, Boss, and . . . and things were always pretty rough. I was looking . . ." He flushed and buried his face in his knees. "I was looking for that. Hard, fast, no strings. I'm really not sure when he decided it was more than that."


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

Gibbs sighed, looking at Tony trying to hide himself in a fetal ball. From the sound of it, he'd been looking for something as different from the relationship he'd had with Jeanne Benoit as he could get. Hard, fast, no strings . . . and maybe just a little bit of punishment for his sins. He could strangle Jenny for her mishandling of DiNozzo . There were people who could have managed to spin a relationship like that out without getting involved. Tony was not one of them. There was a reason none of his relationships lasted more than a month, and a reason there tended to be so many. He couldn't let anyone stay that close, but he needed the closeness. And Jenny had set him up to hurt the only real innocent in the whole situation.

Unfortunately, DiNozzo's argument made sense. Bruises were no proof if the bastard could say that there had always been bruises after their encounters, and Tony couldn't deny it. Going up against a fellow law enforcement officer, they'd need better evidence than that, and they didn't have it. He'd very carefully not left any. "No calls?" he asked.

"I never gave him my cell number," DiNozzo said, lifting his head very slightly. "Neither of us wanted to be outed, so we kept electronic communication to a minimum. He'd leave notes under my windshield wipers, or he'd just show up late at night."

"Where are the notes?"

"I didn't keep them," DiNozzo said, shaking his head earnestly. "I mean, this wasn't like a real relationship . . . or at least I didn't think it was a real relationship. I tossed them."

"What if you needed to tell him something?"

Tony shrugged. "Mostly it was the other way around," he said, looking deeply embarrassed. "Maybe that's why he thinks he's got . . . I just kind of let things happen. I . . . I guess maybe I did give him the wrong idea."

"Tony, this is not your fault," Gibbs said, attempting to pass his conviction on to the younger man. This made the second time during this conversation that DiNozzo had openly blamed himself for his attacker's behavior. That had to stop.

"What does it matter?" Tony asked. "I can't prove anything, I have no evidence at all. I just kind of have to hope he gets tired of it."

"I could have a talk with him," Gibbs suggested. Or he could send Ziva. That was an appealing notion.

"Thanks, _Dad_," DiNozzo said sarcastically. "But he'd just turn that into another reason to call me a coward." He shook his head. "It will pass."

"I'm not worried about what he'll call you!" Gibbs said, exasperated. Could the man not see the danger he was in? "I'm worried about what he'll _do _to you." Tony flinched back into a tighter ball, and Gibbs realized abruptly that he'd underestimated the fear the younger man was feeling. He hid it under sarcasm, humor and bravado, but he was scared. More scared than he'd been yesterday. He muted the anger in his tone, not wanting to add to DiNozzo's alarm. "How bad did it get this time?" he asked.

Tony shook his head. "I don't want to talk about it. I was stupid, I let myself be caught out in a place where I was vulnerable. It won't happen again."

Gibbs scowled, but he thought he'd gotten everything he could out of him at the moment. "It had better not. You don't leave the building without telling me, okay?"

Tony nodded, and the look he shot him was grateful. "Thanks, Dad," he said, this time with less sarcasm. "Can we get back to work now?"

"Right. Let's go. I'll see what I can do to arrange a different space for Ducky to examine you."

Tony sighed, and Gibbs could tell he'd been hoping to avoid that. "Well, I'll go get that file in the meantime. I think I can manage to carry it without help."

"Okay." They got up, straightened themselves out, and Gibbs turned the elevator back on. The doors opened on the squad room, but the director was standing there, waiting. "Go, DiNozzo," Gibbs said, and Tony got out of there. "Do you need something, director?"

"Let's go to my office," she said.

Gibbs grimaced but he followed her. He glanced over and saw DiNozzo grabbing his spare shirt from the filing cabinet. Eschewing his usual technique of simply changing in the open, he hurried off in the direction of the head. Gibbs followed Jenny into her office, ignoring the curious looks of his other team members. "What is it, Jenny?" he asked when the door was shut.

"I went to find you and get an update on the Maitland case, but I couldn't locate you till I found Abby explaining to a very embarrassed maintenance worker that Tony had just lost a dear friend. I gather you were interrupted in your 'conference room'?" Gibbs nodded shortly. "Is this really about his losing a dear friend or is it about the other problem?"

"A little of both," Gibbs said, not planning to elaborate.

"I'll need a little more than that, Jethro."

Gibbs looked down with a grimace. "There was another attack on him today," he said.

Her eyes widened. "We're going to have to take action, Jethro. This can't –" He shook his head, and she broke off. "Why not?"

"Because I gather he wouldn't be able to truthfully say that bruises were uncommon after their encounters," Gibbs said, hoping she wouldn't let on that she knew this kind of detail. Her eyes widened. "We don't have the requisite level of evidence to pursue a case against a law enforcement professional."

"I see. How did this happen? I thought you were keeping him on a short leash."

"He went to interview Chuck Walther. I assumed Walther would be in the building, and it never occurred to Tony to let me know he was leaving because he was following my orders. Interviewing a colleague wouldn't normally require a second agent."

"Are you opening an investigation?" she asked.

"Not at this time," he replied, and she raised an eyebrow. "When the Maitland investigation is over, we'll deal with it." She pursed her lips, and he rolled his eyes. "DiNozzo knows not to leave without checking with me first."

"That makes things a little awkward, doesn't it?" she asked. "Your senior field agent has to ask permission before crossing the street?"

"You got a better idea?"

"Yes, you get Tony to tell you this bastard's name and deal with it before it gets any worse."

"Tony wants to deal with his friend's murder first, and I can't blame him for that."

"I suppose not. I didn't know he was close to Agent Maitland."

Gibbs shrugged. "It was before Maitland married. They used to go to bars together, pick up girls. He helped Tony adjust to NCIS in ways I couldn't have."

"I see." She sighed. "I hate cases like this, but I'm glad it wasn't suicide."

"You spoke to Ducky, then?"

"Of course. Well, keep me in the loop."

"Yes director," he said, and he turned to go.

Just before he opened the door she added, "On both issues, Jethro."

He glanced back and nodded before going back down to the squad room. DiNozzo was already back, going through what looked like reams of financial data. Abby was bouncing in front of his desk. She saw him coming towards Ziva and Tony's desks and bounced up to him. "Gibbs, I have something for you, but you were . . . busy."

"What is it, Abby?"

"I have the second set of fingerprints, but I'm not sure they'll be much help. They belong to Mike Travers."

Gibbs blinked. "His fingerprints were on the glass?" he said to confirm what he'd heard. DiNozzo stood up slowly, brows knitting. She nodded. "That's interesting."

"Why?" McGee asked. "He was there to pick him up."

"Yes, but he told me he'd only been there a time or two and implied he'd never really been inside. DiNozzo, were they back when you were over there?"

"Yeah, Boss," DiNozzo said, and Gibbs noted that he'd doctored his face again.

"Anything on the computer?" Gibbs asked McGee.

"Nothing significant so far, but it was used by everyone in the family, so I doubt he'd leave anything sensitive on it."

"Ziva?"

"No one has noticed anything out of the ordinary. He has been his usual gregarious self."

"Except," DiNozzo put in, "for last night. Chuck said that he sort of 'wound down' while he was going through this file. He thought he was just getting tired, but I know Gabe. When he gets tired, he gets sillier, not quieter. I think there's something in here that disturbed him." He looked down at the pages on his desk. "Unfortunately, I'm not sure I'd recognize it if it put on a tutu and danced to 'The Teddy Bear Picnic.'"

"What?" Ziva said, her expression puzzled. "Teddy bears?"

"It's a –" DiNozzo started, but he broke off, shaking his head. "You've never heard 'The Teddy Bear Picnic'? Assimilate already!"

Gibbs reached out and gave DiNozzo a light tap on the back of the head, above where he judged the bumps had to be. The look DiNozzo shot him was both surprised and grateful, and Gibbs knew he'd read him right. Even under these circumstances, DiNozzo didn't want him going all soft on him. He started barking orders. "DiNozzo, find someone who understands this accounting. McGee, see if Abby can help you. If he did have something sensitive on that machine, he'd have buried it. Look deeper. Ziva, see if you can make any sense of that stuff Tony's working on." With that he strode off to finish with Maitland's desk. Walther observed his approach with a bit of reserve, which Gibbs couldn't find surprising. If another agent was looking through one of his people's desks, he knew he'd be less than receptive to it.

"So, what are we looking at here, Gibbs?" Walther asked.

"Murder," Gibbs replied. Both Travers and Mayfield were away from their desks. He sat down at Maitland's desk. "Was there anyone in particular you guys had identified for your embezzler?"

"There are two or three people who could be it. You don't think one of them –"

"Did Maitland know them personally?"

"No, we haven't even approached them yet. So far it's still numbers on a page. The lead we had early in the week seems to have petered out."

"So, how close are the group of you?" Gibbs asked. "I mean, do you guys do parties at each other's houses, or –"

"Gibbs, what are you aiming at?" Walther asked, standing up.

"I have to eliminate every possibility," Gibbs said. "You know that."

Chuck pursed his lips. "No, we haven't really been that kind of team. God knows Gabe tried, but Travers can't stand the whole happy family thing after his divorce, and Mayfield isn't much of a joiner. I've been to dinner over there a few times with my wife, but it's been a few months since the last time. Why?"

"How has Travers seemed today?"

"How would you be after finding one of your teammates dead in his house?" Chuck asked. "He's convinced it was suicide, and he . . ." Chuck trailed off. "That's odd, I hadn't thought . . ."

"What?"

Chuck shook his head. "I'm sure it's not important." Gibbs just raised his eyebrows and maintained silence. After a moment, Chuck made a face. "I thought it was weird last night, Gabe said he was too tired to feel safe driving home, and he asked Mike to give him a ride."

"What's weird about that?"

"They always rubbed the wrong way, Gibbs. You know how it can be. Like the way DiNozzo and Todd were most of the time. Sparks flying, and not in a good way."

Gibbs didn't see Kate and DiNozzo's relationship that way, though Kate hadn't always been able to see through DiNozzo's veneer. "Go on."

"Well, I just was surprised that he'd ask Mike for a ride, but it didn't seem important. I think he said something about it being more on his way home than mine or Mayfield's."

"That true?"

"I guess. Kind of six of one, half a dozen of the other, really." Walther shook his head. "Gibbs, it can't be what you're thinking. It just can't."

There wasn't a lot Gibbs could say. "I have to eliminate everything, Chuck," he said.

"Yeah, Jethro, I know." He shook his head. "I know."

* * *

McGee had been downstairs with Abby for awhile when something occurred to Tony suddenly. He got up and started towards the elevator.

"Where are you going, Tony?" Ziva asked.

"I've got an idea for something Abby and McGee should be looking for. I'll be back in a minute." He couldn't believe it had taken him this long to remember. The elevator doors opened, and he went through the door to Abby's lab. Before he could see them, he could hear them, arguing in geekspeak. They got so amazingly passionate about things that no one else understood. It amused him sometimes. He listened for a minute, then walked all the way in. "I've been listening to the two of you for five minutes, and I still haven't heard a word I understand."

"Last I checked you knew the words 'and' and 'the,' Tony," Abby said mischievously while McGee just huffed irritably. "What's up?"

"I just remembered something. Gabe used to be sort of a compulsive journal writer."

"There weren't any journals at his place," McGee said. "I didn't see anything like that."

"He didn't write by hand, McGeek," Tony said. McGee looked startled. "I know, most of the people I've known who kept diaries write by hand, but he didn't. Every night, he sit down at his computer and set down his thoughts or the events of the day or his plans, all sorts of stuff. I don't know if he still did, but if he did, I'd bet it's on this machine."

McGee nodded slowly. "And since it sounds kind of like you've read it, and I know you, I'll bet he's more careful now about hiding it."

"What do you mean by that, Probie?" Tony demanded.

"Oh, I'm sure you never teased him about stuff he said in there," McGee said sourly.

"Maybe," Tony said with a grin. "One time I peeked over his shoulder while he was writing, and it looked like something out of _Penthouse _'Forums.'" Tony glanced aside at Abby and decided to have a little fun. "That's where guys write in things that supposedly actually happened, but it's always this insane fantasy stuff. I'm sure a guy like you who reads _Redbook _doesn't know anything about that, but it gets pretty –"

"I know what it is, Tony," McGee snapped.

Tony grinned at getting the rise he'd been dangling for. "Anyway, he also wrote about work, and I think it might be important."

"We'll keep an eye out for it, Tony sir!" Abby said, saluting.

Tony returned the salute and headed back upstairs. The accountant had shown up in his absence, but she was shaking her head. "Unless you know what I'm looking for, I'm not going to be able to find anything unless the figures are wrong, and that could take hours." She looked at the pages. "Days even."

"There's got to be some way to –" His phone rang. "DiNozzo."

"Tony, I found it," McGee announced. "I started thinking about some of the programs I've run across that . . ." Here he descended into geekspeak. Tony listened for a moment, trying to understand, but then he shook his head impatiently and interrupted.

"McGee, the point is you found it. Is there anything useful in it?"

"I'm e-mailing the last entry to you now. I'll bet it will help you with that accounting data."

"Please." Tony sat down and called up his e-mail. He scanned the entry and blinked. "Come here –" He looked up at her, suddenly realizing he didn't know her. "What's your name?"

"Irene."

"Irene, come here and look at this. With this information, can you locate the data you need?"

She looked it over and looked up at him. "Is this for real?"

"Just tell me if you can do it," he said.

"It's pretty specific. It might take a little time, but yes, if it's there, I can find it."

McGee came hurrying in with some printouts. "I found the business license and the incorporation papers online." Tony took them and looked at them. He handed them to Irene who pursed her lips and started looking through the documents.

"I'd better call Gibbs."

* * *

Mike Travers had accompanied Gibbs into the interview room without any argument. Chuck Walther had followed, pulling out his cell phone, and Gibbs suspected that he'd have both him and Jenny in the observation room before long.

"So, Agent Travers, I asked you earlier if you'd been to Agent Maitland's house before." Travers nodded. "What did you say?"

"I said once or twice, not more."

"But you took him home last night?"

"I did."

"You didn't mention that."

"I didn't . . . I didn't think about it. He was very tired last night, I dropped him off. Nothing really happened."

"You dropped him off?" Gibbs repeated.

"Well, yeah."

"So, you didn't get out of the car?" Gibbs asked.

Travers took a deep breath, and his eyes gave evidence of fast thinking. "I saw him inside, you know. Just to make sure, since he'd wanted a ride home because he didn't feel safe driving. I wanted to be certain he was okay."

"Did you tuck him in?" Gibbs asked, allowing a little skepticism to bleed into his voice.

Travers' brows knit. "I'm sorry? I went in with him, I left him in the living room. I went home."

"Did anything else happen while you were inside?"

"Like what?" Travers asked. "Are you implying something?"

"I didn't imply anything," Gibbs said. "I asked a question."

"I took him inside, I left. Nothing else."

"Then would you care to tell me why your fingerprints would be on a glass found in his sink?"

"Oh . . . um . . . I suppose we had a drink," Travers said, and Gibbs raised his eyebrows.

"So, you had a drink with Agent Maitland . . . at what time?"

"I don't know, about two in the morning."

"And then what?"

"And then I left."

"And how did he seem when you left?"

"Fine, I guess. He didn't seem suicidal if that's what you mean."

Gibbs nodded slowly. "All right. Did you see anything suspicious? Anyone around that raised any red flags?"

Travers shook his head. "No, I just drove home."

"And what time did you get there?"

"Around two-thirty," Travers said.

"Why didn't you tell me any of this when we spoke at the house?"

Travers ran his hands through his hair nervously. "I don't know. I didn't think, I guess. I was just so freaked out about him killing himself." He looked down at the table. After a moment he looked up. "You don't think it was suicide, do you, though?"

Gibbs shook his head. "No, it wasn't," he said. "Do you have anything you'd like to add?" Travers shook his head, and Gibbs gazed calmly at him for several moments, then said, "Then that's all."

"That's all?" Travers repeated. "You brought me into interrogation and that's all?"

"Is there something else I should be asking you?" Gibbs asked.

"I found my teammate dead in his own garage, you shouldn't be asking me anything!" He rose and stormed out of the room. Gibbs stayed where he was, considering all that had been said . . . and all that had not been said.

A moment later Walther and Jenny came in. He looked up to see Walther looking deeply disturbed. "I still don't believe it," he said.

"There's nothing to believe, Chuck," Gibbs replied. "I'm just asking questions. I'm not sure why he didn't tell me that when I talked to him earlier, but I had to get the answers."

"Has it occurred to you that he may feel guilty for not preventing this?"

Gibbs nodded, shrugging, and left the interrogation room. He wasn't going into detail about his thinking with the man's supervisor. There were too many possibilities open at this point, but the fact was, Travers had not been forthcoming during the earlier interview, and that didn't look good.

The elevator doors opened and DiNozzo walked out. "Boss, your phone's off."

"I know," Gibbs said simply.

"I remembered something about Gabe," DiNozzo said, backing into the elevator. "He keeps a journal, and McGee found it on his computer."

"Are you telling me he made an entry last night?"

DiNozzo nodded. "He did. At quarter to three this morning. He wrote about a confrontation with a co-worker whom he suspected of wrongdoing, and his intention of going to their supervisor with his concerns today."

"Does he name the co-worker?"

"No, but who else could it be, Boss?"

The elevator doors shut. "It could be the tooth fairy, DiNozzo. Ducky's waiting for you in Abby's lab."

"Boss, I don't need –"

Gibbs took off as the elevator doors opened. He stopped by Ziva's desk and spoke in a low voice. "Take McGee and go out to Travers' place and find out if there's anyone who can confirm when he got home. Be discreet."

She looked at him with her eyes wide. "Yes, Gibbs."

He turned to the woman seated at DiNozzo's desk. "You are?"

"Irene Jacobs," she said.

"She's the accounting expert Jameson sent over."

"Work at the desk on the other side of McGee's," he ordered, and the woman, looking startled, moved to comply. "DiNozzo, why are you still here?"

"Boss, I don't need –" DiNozzo started again.

"With me, DiNozzo," Gibbs snapped. McGee and Ziva looked back curiously as they headed for the other elevator. Someone was emerging from the lab elevator as they reached it, and Gibbs held the door open for Tony.

"Boss –"

"In, DiNozzo. That isn't a suggestion."

Tony got onto the elevator, and Gibbs joined him, deciding that this was not a time to leave the young man to his own devices. If he did, he'd hear from Ducky in fifteen minutes or so that Tony had failed to show up, and then he'd find Tony in some perfectly plausible pursuit, looking up files or chatting with some girl who was Gabe's very good friend. No, he was seeing this through.

Tony marched mutinously into the forensics lab where the windows to the street outside were covered with dozens of sheets of white paper taped in place. Abby looked around, gave Tony a sympathetic grin and hurried out without speaking. Ducky gave Tony a worried look. "All right, Anthony, please, remove your garments again."

"I'm fine," Tony said to Gibbs, stalling. "It's not that much different from yesterday."

Gibbs just crossed his arms and waited. Ducky patted Tony on the shoulder. "Anthony, it will go much faster if you simply go along with it."

Tony scowled, but he peeled out of his shirt. The bruises on his arms were going Technicolor, and he had a couple on his ribs and belly that Gibbs hadn't seen before. Tony kicked off his shoes and pulled his jeans off, revealing more bruises on his thighs and back. Gibbs stared at a bruise revealed on Tony's lower back. He glanced at Ducky and gestured with his eyes towards the large rectangular mark that disappeared beneath the boxers.

"That's new," Ducky said. "Anthony, there is a . . . forgive me, dear boy. He pulled the waistband of the boxers out and peered down. Gibbs could see that the bruise kept going, and he wanted to know what the hell had caused it.

Tony flushed, and reached around. He touched the bruise, and the movement of his arm told Gibbs what the source was a moment before Tony spoke. "Oh, that must be from my Sig. I had it back there earlier."

Gibbs ground his teeth, contemplating the force Gigantor had to have used to cause that serious a bruise. Ducky was still looking down DiNozzo's drawers. "I see there are fresh bruises on your left buttock," he said informatively.

Tony's shoulders tensed. "He had a good grope," he said angrily. "I was there."

Ducky released the waistband of Tony's boxers and put a gentle hand on his arm as he walked around to the front. "Yes, well, I wasn't, and you're not being very communicative."

Tony's shoulders drooped, and he shook his head. "I'd just rather not think about it, Ducky," he said. "It's embarrassing."

"I know, dear boy, most victims of sexual assault feel that way."

Tony's back muscles all tensed up. "Sexual . . ." he said, his voice faltering. "No."

Ducky's eyes met Gibbs' and they shared a moment of dismay. Gibbs cleared his throat. "What did you think this was?" he asked.

Tony shrugged, his muscles still very tense. "A difference of opinion."

Gibbs raised his eyebrows. "A difference of opinion with bruises," he said.

"Well, differences of opinion with Brody usually end up with –" He cut off sharply and went pale from his hairline to his toes, making the bruises stand out in stark relief against the whiter skin. Then he flushed.

"Brody?" Gibbs said, and Tony turned around with wide, staring eyes, appalled. "And he's beat up on you before? Do I take it you mean before the black eye?"

DiNozzo shook his head. "No, I didn't mean that how it sounded," he said defensively. "Are we done? Have you gotten a good enough look at me, or do you want me to drop everything?"

"Put your clothes back on, my boy. I'll check your head once you've done that."

DiNozzo grabbed his pants and pulled them on immediately. "Gibbs has already smacked me once, and I survived the experience, so I'm sure my head is fine." Ducky shot Gibbs a reproving look, but Gibbs recalled Tony's reaction and couldn't feel bad about it.

"Does it hurt?"

Tony pulled his shirt on. "Not unless I touch it." He allowed Ducky to guide him to a chair and winced as the medical examiner began to run his fingers over his scalp. "Or someone else touches it," he grumbled, and Gibbs quirked a grin that quickly faded as he considered the source of the injuries. An unusually large man named Brody. That should narrow things down considerably.

"Gibbs, you can't just go after him," Tony said.

"That his first or last name, DiNozzo?"

Tony closed his eyes. Gibbs could see his dismay at his own indiscretion. "First," Tony said, apparently giving up on secrecy. "Brody Harris. Detective Lieutenant Brody Harris. Third district."

"Detective Lieutenant?" Gibbs repeated, his eyebrows going up.

"You see why I think it's a bad idea to pursue it?" Tony said.

Gibbs took a deep breath to bring his anger under control. "I understand your reasoning," he said. "But I don't agree with it."

"Besides, if he'll do this to you, a fellow law enforcement officer and a full grown adult male, what will he do to those who are less protected?" Ducky asked.

"I checked his record. He doesn't have any complaints like that at all," Tony said, and Gibbs had to control another surge of anger.

"But you wondered," he said, and Tony shrugged, not meeting his eyes. "Look, that aside, I can't stand by while one of my agents is stalked, beaten and sexually assaulted."

"I'm not being beaten, Gibbs," DiNozzo protested.

"There's a bruise in the center of your back that suggests otherwise, DiNozzo," Gibbs said. "If this was happening to Abby or McGee or Ziva, you would shoot me if I didn't take action."

"Well, it isn't Abby or McGee or Ziva," Tony snapped.

"No, Tony, it's you," Gibbs said, giving him a stern look . The younger man turned away. "And frankly, I don't want to get shot by Ziva."

"Why would Ziva shoot you?" Abby asked from the doorway. "My eyes are closed, but can I come back in?"

"We're done in here, Abby," Gibbs said.

"Is Tony done being naked?"

"I wasn't naked," Tony said. "I'm going back to work. Unless you're going to declare me unfit," he added, asking Ducky.

"No, you're fit," Ducky said slowly, as if he had reservations. Gibbs raised his eyebrows at Ducky, who shook his head slightly. Gibbs nodded to Tony who left hastily.

Once Tony was gone, Abby said, "I love it when you guys do that, the whole, we've known each other forever and can talk without speaking thing. It's cool."

"Thanks, Abby," Gibbs said, leading the way out of the lab with Ducky behind him.

"But wait, why would Ziva shoot you?" she called as they left, and Gibbs shook his head.

"Not now, Abby."

Once the elevator doors were closed, Ducky turned to him. "Jethro, I'm very concerned about his mental and emotional state. This reaction that he's not worth defending is very worrisome. I'm terribly afraid that it relates back to that unfortunate business with La Granouille and Jeanne Benoit."

"Yeah, Duck, I think it does," Gibbs said. It related to more than that. Gibbs knew that Tony's early life had been pretty haphazard and borderline abusive. Things he'd said, little facts he'd let drop, rarely anything that had much meaning alone, but taken together they painted a very unhappy picture. For the most part, Tony's stories about himself started with college. Gibbs had heard more about McGee's childhood – even more about Ziva's – than he'd ever heard about Tony's, and he'd known him considerably longer.

"I just wanted to register that concern, Jethro. The boy takes guilt on himself much too readily, and I think he may be acting that out in this relationship with . . . what was the name? Brody?"

"Brody Harris," Gibbs said. "Is that all, Ducky?"

"Yes."

Gibbs waited while Ducky left the elevator on his level, then hit the button for the squad room. He went to his desk and called up the police files that Ziva had dug up for him, looking up the bastard. Tony was right, not a sign of complaints from anyone regarding abuse. He made a quick phone call, however. That being satisfactorily answered, he waited ten minutes, then rose. "I'm going out for coffee," he told DiNozzo. "You call me if you have anything, and you don't leave. Got that?"

"Yes Boss," DiNozzo said, keeping his head down.

Gibbs walked out of the Navy Yard and over to the coffee cart that set up there every morning. After buying a cup, he sat down on a bench and waited. It was only a few minutes later when a man about his age in a casual suit walked up with his own cup of coffee and sat down. "What's up, Gibbs?" he asked.

"I've got a question for you, Fornell, and I'd rather it remained between us for the moment."

"I can do that. Shoot."

"Do you know a detective in the third district named Brody Harris?"

Fornell raised his eyebrows. "I've heard the name," he said.

"What have you heard?"

"Depends on who you ask, and what you ask about," Fornell replied.

"Is he a clean cop?"

"I've never heard otherwise," Fornell said with a shrug, and Gibbs tilted his head.

"That's not exactly a ringing endorsement."

"I've met him a couple of times. Big guy, kind of intense. I've heard he's a good detective."

"Have you heard anything to his detriment?"

Fornell gave him a suspicious look. "I've heard that he's a little hard on trainees that come his way. Nothing too specific, and no overt complaints. You know how it can be. Nebulous feelings that you can't quite pin down?"

Gibbs nodded. "Can you find out if there's anything more specific floating around out there?"

"Why?" Gibbs gave Fornell a look meant to remind him of their long history. Fornell waved a conciliatory hand. "I mean, sure, I'll do it, but can you tell me what you suspect?"

Gibbs pursed his lips. "Not right now," he said. "I'll owe you one."

"Is this a personal favor or a professional one?" Fornell asked.

"For now let's call it personal," Gibbs said.

Fornell's brows went up again. "I'm already in your debt there, Gibbs," the FBI agent said, and Gibbs shrugged. "Can I call you at work on this?"

"Sure, but . . ." Gibbs grimaced. "Don't leave a message with anyone. Talk to me directly."

"No problem," Fornell said. Gibbs stood up and so did Fornell. As Gibbs started back towards the gate to the Navy Yard, Fornell caught his arm. "You will tell me what this is about later?"

"Probably." Fornell gave him an irritable look. He just shrugged again and continued on his way.

When he entered the squad room, Tony gave him the message that the director wanted to see him. He still seemed very subdued, but Gibbs didn't know what he could do about that. He went in to see Jenny. "If we keep this up, people are going to talk," he said, shutting the door behind him.

"Any updates?"

"Nothing specific at the moment on the Maitland murder."

"And on Tony's situation?"

"I've got a name and I'm checking it out. I just had a talk with Fornell. Keeping it low on the radar right now."

"Good," she said. "What's the name?"

"Brody Harris," he replied. "A detective lieutenant in the third district."

"I see." She gazed at him thoughtfully for a moment. "Would you have told me if I hadn't asked?" she asked finally.

"I thought I taught you better than that," Gibbs said, turning and heading towards the door.

"What do you mean?"

"Rule forty-three." She raised her eyebrows. "Never ask a question you don't want to know the answer to." He opened the door and left.


	5. Chapter 5

_Author's note: Contains graphic non-consensual sex. Be warned._

* * *

**Chapter 5**

Tony wasn't sure whether Gibbs had left to work on the case or to work on Brody Harris. Truth be told, he wasn't sure he wanted to know which. He wanted to know what Gabe had suspected Mike Travers of. No matter what Gibbs said, it wasn't the tooth fairy that Gabe had confronted, it was the man who drove him home. The man he'd described as 'the person pessimists avoid because he's too negative.' Tony knew next to nothing about Travers, but before the day was out he was going to know everything worth knowing.

He glanced at his computer clock and revised that a bit. Before tomorrow was out, he would know everything worth knowing. Three hours didn't give him much time to discover the man's entire history. It gave him plenty of time to Google him, however, and he found some very entertaining references to him on several people's Facebook pages.

The elevator chimed and he looked up automatically to see who it was. Sheila emerged, looking frantic. Tony leapt up and hurried over to her, ignoring the way his bruises twinged. "Sheila, what is it? Are you okay?"

"They won't let us go home," she said tearfully. "I've taken the girls to Ross and Sharon, but I . . . why won't they let us go home?"

Tony put an arm around her and took her over to Ziva's desk where he sat her down. "Sheila, he died there." She gazed at ohim without comprehension. "It's a crime scene," he added gently.

"Why would he do this? What possible reason could he have to do this to us?"

Tony knelt in front of her and put his hands on her shoulders. "Sheila, look at me." She turned her eyes towards him, but she didn't really seem to see him. "Sheila?" He took a deep breath. "Sheila, I'm wearing make up."

She blinked at him. "What?" Her eyes refocused and she said, "You are. Tony?"

He shrugged. "I've got some bruises. I didn't want to talk about them, so I covered them up."

"How manly," she said with an attempt at a smile. "You should blend it better. Maybe add some green to cut the red."

"Right, I'll do that," he replied. "Sheila, Gabe didn't kill himself. We know that for sure."

"Then . . ." She shook her head. "Then he was murdered?"

Tony nodded. "And we're going to find out who did it. Do you feel up to answering a few questions?"

"I guess," she said. "Tony, who would want to murder Gabe? Everyone liked him."

An unexpected voice made Tony look up to see Gibbs standing on the other side of the desk. "That's what we're trying to find out." Tony stood up and took a step back to let his boss take over. "Mrs. Maitland, I'm Special Agent Gibbs." He held out his hand and she shook it.

Tears still wet on her face, she smiled up at him. "I'm sure you will, Agent Gibbs. Gabe always said you were the best. He was jealous that Tony got to work with you."

"He was a good man, Mrs. Maitland," Gibbs said. "Now, where are your children?"

"Staying with friends," she said. "I didn't . . . it never occurred to me that we wouldn't be able to go home."

Tony went back to his own desk and let Gibbs handle the interview. He was too close to do it himself. He'd spent too many evenings teasing Gabe about how family life had changed him while watching a game on TV, listening to Sheila cheer the Green Bay Packers on, misguided as she was. He retreated to his desk and sat down, listening as Gibbs skillfully got Sheila to open up and talk.

"No, we didn't have much contact with his teammates," Sheila said. "Very different from Agent Howard's team where we had team picnics and outings to the state fair."

"You did meet the others, though?"

"Of course," Sheila said. "Chuck came over with Linda a few times, and we ran into Mike and Terry at a bar once."

"Is Terry his ex-wife?"

"No, his girlfriend. Mike wasn't very welcoming, so we moved on after a few minutes. I've only seen Agent Mayfield in the office."

"I see. So, did your husband talk to you about work much?"

She shook her head. "Not much. If something really upset him, he'd sometimes talk about it, but mostly we didn't talk about work. I mean, I didn't want to spend my evenings talking about obnoxious adolescents, and he didn't want to spend his talking about misbehaving seaman and marines."

"High school teacher?"

"Junior high," she said. "Gabe always says that I get them when they're at their most hormonally challenged." She paused, looking stricken. "Gabe always said . . . I can't believe he's dead."

"I know," he said. "I understand."

She looked at him. "Do you?" she asked. "Gabe told me that he hates – hated – saying that to people when it wasn't true."

Gibbs nodded. "I do, too," he said. "But I do understand."

Sheila was silent for a moment. "Then I'm very sorry," she said. "Do you have any more questions? I'd really like to get back to the girls now that I'm a little less hysterical."

"No, if I have anything else, I'll call you later. Go to your daughters."

Tony got up. "I'll walk you down," he said, giving Gibbs a look to reassure him that he wasn't leaving the yard.

"Thank you, Tony."

He saw her to her car and returned to his desk. By the time he got there, Ziva and McGee were back and reporting. Gibbs raised an eyebrow at him, and he shook his head to indicate that he had learned nothing more. "So, his alibi checks out," Ziva said. "His neighbor was playing World of Warcraft in his front room while watching _War of the Worlds_ . . . I do not understand this country . . . and he saw him pull in at around two-thirty in the morning."

"He could still have gotten back in time to kill him at four in the morning," Tony said.

"Ah, but that neighbor did not go to bed until past five, and he says he would have noticed if Travers had left because the headlights shine right in his window when he pulls in and out."

"So Travers is off the hook," Gibbs said.

"Not altogether," Agent Jacobs interjected, and they all turned to her in surprise. Tony had completely forgotten the woman was there. "He is very definitely involved in the embezzling scheme, or at least in covering it up. I suspect, though, that if you were to look at records of his computer access, they would correspond with some of these suspect transactions."

"But that's a Navy computer system. Why would he have access?" Tony asked.

"Last year we worked together on a task force to try and plug some of the accounting gaps the Navy had in its system. From what I'm seeing here, it looks like Mike created some. Also, I know he probably still has access because I do. I just checked on the off chance, and my login still works. I'll have to let them know so they can fix that."

"McGee, check the computer logs," Gibbs said. "Ziva, did you hear anything about a girlfriend named Terry?"

"Terry Ferguson. She works at Morgan Stanley."

"That would make a great combination, Boss," Tony said. "He steals the money, she makes it disappear."

"Is what you have enough for a warrant?" Gibbs asked Irene.

"For his financial records, certainly. For hers, not so much, unless . . ." She went and sat back down, tapping away at the keyboard. "Aha! It looks like she provided some of the references on this dummy corporation's contract with the Navy. You can subpoena her records, too."

"On it, Boss," Tony said, picking up the phone and calling Legal.

"McGee, get those logs together for me. Ziva –" Gibbs broke off. "Agent Jacobs, are you a field agent?"

Irene blinked. "Yes, I am," she said.

"Ziva, take Agent Jacobs and go pick up Miss Ferguson."

"My gear is at my desk," Jacobs said, seeming startled by the order. After a brief moment of confusion, she walked off towards her desk, and Ziva followed her away.

Tony watched them go and cleared his throat. "Boss, what about me?"

Gibbs turned to him and looked at him for a moment. "Sit down before you fall down," he said, then he turned and strode away towards Walther's team's bullpen.

Tony glanced over at McGee. "I don't look that bad, do I, Probie?"

McGee looked over at him. "Truth?" he asked.

"Yeah, McGee, truth."

McGee grimaced sympathetically. "Sit down before you fall down."

Tony sank into his chair. He felt fine. Really. Except for the aches in his shoulders and the way his arms felt like lead. There was a faint throbbing in the bumps on his head, and he was beginning to feel a little tired. But he felt fine, really. He lowered his head to his desk.

"Why don't you go home, Tony?"

"I'm not allowed," Tony said to his desk.

"Not allowed?"

"Nope. Be glad he didn't tell you to take me home like he told you to take Abby."

McGee was silent for a moment. "Tony, what's going –"

Tony sat up and held up a finger. "Not another word, Probie," he snapped, but then he winced, kind of spoiling the effect. Moving so quickly made everything hurt, and his head protested vehemently. "I don't want to talk about it." He put his head down again. The tapping of McGee's keys gradually lulled him to sleep.

* * *

_Tony unlocked his door and walked into the apartment. He hung up his jacket and put his pack on the floor. All he wanted right now was a beer and a movie where the bad guys got their lumps and the good guy got the girl. Something where good and evil were clearly defined. He swung through the kitchen and grabbed a beer, but as he came out the door into the living room, he felt arms encircle him from behind, reaching for his belt. "Surprise," Brody murmured in his ear._

_"Brody, not tonight," he said, startled that he hadn't realized the other man was present. "I am so not in the mood." Brody had been getting damned pushy lately, and Tony just wanted to vegetate tonight._

_Brody whipped Tony's belt out of his pants and dropped it on the floor. "Oh, I can get you in the mood, Tony."_

_Tony put his hands on Brody's, trying to stop him from unbuttoning his pants. "I don't want to, Brody. It's been a rotten day and I just –"_

_"I can make it better," Brody said, and he nibbled delicately on Tony's ear. "Come on, just a little fun."_

_"Brody, no," Tony said, leaning away and trying to get out of the circle of Brody's arms. The other man didn't release him, and he felt his zipper going down. "Brody, I said no."_

_"Come on, Tony, make me happy. Then we can do whatever you want."_

_"Brody, let me go, I said –"_

_The arms grew suddenly hard, and Tony felt a flutter of unease. "I want this, Tony, I need this. Give it to me." He started walking them towards Tony's bedroom, and Tony shook his head._

_"Brody . . ." he protested, but Brody wasn't listening. He basically dragged Tony into his own bedroom and then, grabbing his waist, turned him around. "Brody, I –"_

_Brody grabbed his neck in both hands and took advantage of the mouth opened to speak to kiss him intensely. Tony put his hands on Brody's shoulders and pushed, but Brody didn't even budge. The other man was already all but naked, only wearing the bathrobe he kept leaving here. His hands dropped down to Tony's waist again and rid him of his pants._

_Tony was getting the picture. Brody wasn't interested in what mood he was in. He made another attempt when Brody broke the kiss to nibble on his ear. "Brody, I don't want to do this tonight."_

_Brody grabbed his wrists and pulled Tony's hands off his shoulders. He forced them together behind him and held them in one hand. Tony remembered occasions when this had happened before when he hadn't minded so much, but he opened his mouth to object. Brody cupped his free hand over it, and Tony stared up at him in alarm. "Shut up, Tony," he said harshly, and then he started undoing shirt buttons._

_Short of fighting him off, which was more effort than Tony felt able to put in right now, he wasn't going to be able to persuade Brody to back down. He just stopped protesting. Brody took the shirt off him, getting a little impatient and ripping some of the buttons off._

_"Brody, that was an expensive –"_

_"Fuck the shirt!" Brody snarled, and, releasing Tony's hands, he pushed him backwards onto the bed. Tony's butt landed against the footboard, and he let out a yelp of pain. Then Brody was on him, dragging him up the bed, his hands under Tony's butt, kneading and squeezing. Maybe if he didn't do anything, Brody would get the hint. He lay unmoving under the other man's roving hands and mouth. He wasn't really any rougher than usual, but it felt that way with Tony not joining in. And Brody didn't seem to care much that Tony wasn't responding to his advances. He flipped him over, yanked his boxers down and spread Tony's butt cheeks wide, pulling him up onto his knees to facilitate access._

_Tony shook his head. "Brody, come on, I –" His voice cut off on a startled gasp as Brody shoved a finger into him without lubrication. "No way man, you are not going to do this dry," he said angrily, shifting to push away. Brody grabbed his hips and held on, his grip hard and bruising. Tony felt another flutter of dismay. "Brody, not dry," he repeated._

_"Then shut up," Brody growled. He bit down on Tony's shoulder, and Tony clenched his teeth. It hurt more than it should, but he wasn't sure that Brody wouldn't go through with the implied threat, so he didn't say anything else. He closed his eyes and listened to the sound of Brody warming the lube in his hands. Brody took less time preparing him than he usually did, and when he thrust in . . ._

* * *

Tony sat up sharply, his hands flat on the desk. He was breathing hard, and he could feel his hands shaking. "Tony?" McGee said, and Tony realized abruptly exactly where he was and that he wasn't alone. Ziva was staring at him from across the way, and Gibbs . . . Gibbs had that mildly quizzical look that meant he was preparing one zinger of a question.

"I have to hit the head," he said, hoping his voice sounded somewhere near normal, and he got up, stumbling a little on legs that weren't sure they were ready to go from sleep to walking quite so quickly. Rigidly controlling himself, he hurried out of the bullpen, thankful that it was now so late that they were the only team present. He fled to the safety of one of the stalls where he closed his eyes and rested his head against the cool granite. Why the hell would he be dreaming of that at work? It was an unpleasant incident, but it was months ago, and . . .

At the time Tony had believed that if he'd been more emphatic, if he'd just struggled harder, he could have gotten away. It had somehow made his surrender more bearable to think that he could have stopped Brody if he'd wanted to badly enough. He couldn't be sure, now, looking back on that night and several other nights when he'd refused and Brody had forced the issue, that Brody wouldn't have stopped no matter what he did. He'd certainly wanted to have sex the night he'd punched Tony for 'cheating' on him with Abby.

Tony rubbed his face with his hands. He couldn't think about this now. He had to get back to work. God knew what had happened while he slept. It was past three in the morning, so the fact that no one had left yet indicated that the case was still hot. He stood up and walked out of the stall. Pulling off a few paper towels, he wet them and washed his face. The make up came off, and he examined the bruises on his chin. He could see Brody's thumb and fingers imprinted on his skin.

Morbid curiosity overtook him. It was past three but not yet four, so the likelihood was that there wasn't much of anyone else in this part of the building. He pulled his shirt off and took a look at the bruises on his arms. He hadn't wanted to look when he'd taken his shower that morning. His upper arms showed clear, overlapping handprints. His wrists were practically solid bruise, purple, green and yellow. The bite on his neck was clarifying into a purple ring of teeth surrounded by greenish skin.

The door behind him opened, and he froze. In the mirror he could see McGee standing in the doorway, eyes wide and appalled. "Tony, I'm sorry, I didn't – I wasn't –"

Tony started pulling his shirt back on. "Close the door, Probie," he said harshly.

"Oh . . . um . . . right." McGee came the rest of the way in and closed the door. "God, Tony, Gibbs said you had a stalker, but I thought it was like Abby."

"What do you mean, like Abby?" Tony asked.

"I didn't think anyone was actually hurting you. I mean, Gibbs seems so calm."

Tony snorted. "Gibbs has a good game face, Probie. I thought you knew that."

"I guess . . ." McGee was looking troubled. "What did he do to you?"

"If I wanted to talk about it, McGee, you'd already know," Tony said. He was regaining his equilibrium. "Aren't you going to use the facilities? Or did you just come in here to admire my physique?"

"Tony, you can't just brush this off. You look like someone's been –"

The door opened behind McGee, and Tony looked in the mirror to see Gibbs staring at McGee. "I thought I told you to go home."

"You did. I am . . . I mean I had to . . . and I just . . . I didn't mean . . ."

"I'm leaving," Tony said. Gibbs backed up out of the way, and Tony left McGee staring after him. He hoped McGee would start asking Gibbs questions and draw his attention, but no such luck. Gibbs followed him. "Where are we on the case, Boss?" Tony asked.

"Actually, I was just about to go in and have a chat with Theresa Ferguson."

"In the head?"

Gibbs shrugged. "After I checked on you. Bad dream?" Tony glowered at him and started to speak, but Gibbs cut him off. "That's what I thought. How are you feeling?"

"Like I want a large Vicodin cocktail," Tony said with a sigh.

"I'm not surprised."

"Do you want me to come in with you?"

"So you can snore a confession out of her?" Gibbs asked. "Effective as that might be, I'm going to say no."

Tony concealed the hurt he felt at being dismissed like that and said, "If you want to snore a confession out of someone, try Ziva. She snores like a drunken sailor with emphysema."

"I heard her, too, DiNozzo," Gibbs said. "I'd rather you observed on this one."

Tony nodded and went into the observation room where he found Ziva already waiting. "Anything interesting happen while I was asleep?"

"Travers confessed to his part in the embezzlement and fraud, but he says he did not kill anyone."

"The more I think about it, the more I don't buy him as the killer anyway," Tony said. "It was pretty clumsy for a trained investigator to leave those glasses in the sink for one thing." Ziva nodded.

"Finally!" Terry Ferguson said as Gibbs entered interrogation. She was a dark-haired woman, dressed in expensive jeans and a designer top even at three in the morning. Her make-up was perfect, her hair was styled. This was a woman to whom appearance was important. "I've been waiting here for three hours,"

"Have you?" Gibbs asked mildly as he sat down. "I'm Special Agent Gibbs, and I'm in charge of this investigation."

Her back straightened, and she glared at him. "How dare you come to my house at midnight and drag me down here to sit for three hours?"

"Three and a half hours, to be exact," Gibbs said. "You'll have to forgive me, I do have a few other things going on." She huffed irritably. "You haven't asked why you're here."

She rolled her eyes. "I'm suspected of embezzlement, or that's what I was told."

"Are you guilty?" he asked, his eyes wide with innocent curiosity.

"No, but if I was, do you think I'd just tell you like that?" Ferguson shook her head, clearly annoyed by Gibbs' whole demeanor.

Tony blinked. "This is an unusual tactic."

"It will work," Ziva said. Tony looked over at her curiously. She was watching with a slight smile on her face.

Gibbs chuckled. He actually chuckled, and then said, "A man can hope, can't he?"

"Hope," Ferguson snapped back with a grimace. "That's all men do is hope. They get bright ideas, pie in the sky dreams, but it takes a woman to make them happen."

"Really?" Gibbs said.

"You see it every day in the banking business. You get a man coming in to give this incredible presentation, but right behind him is the woman with the mock-ups and the business plans and the stick-to-itiveness to see it through."

"I suppose that's true."

"Damn right, it's true. Men are dreamers, women are planners, doers. Every great accomplishment in this world has happened because of a woman working behind the scenes, and are men grateful?"

"Sometimes."

"Sometimes is bullshit. I spend weeks planning presentations that my supervisor takes to meetings and gets full credit for. Does he even mention me? I'm just the little woman behind the scenes, no college degree, just an assistant." She laughed. "When I leave, he's never gonna know what hit him."

Ziva made a small sound of appreciation. "She was like this in the car, too. Could not stop talking." Tony could see where this was going now. Gibbs was going to let her hang herself with her own words.

Gibbs tilted his head. "You're going to quit your job?" he asked curiously.

She got a wary look at that question. "No, not any time soon."

Gibbs nodded. "Well, we've been talking to Mike –"

"Now there's a dreamer for you. All sorts of ideas, but no staying power."

"Which is where you come in?" Gibbs asked.

She made a face. "He needs pushing to get things done is all."

"And you do that for him?"

"Sure," she said with a shrug.

"Can you tell me about your movements on Tuesday?"

"I guess. I went to the gym at six, I do weight training, and then I went to work. Mike said he would be busy all night, so I went out to a movie with a friend of mine."

"Name and number?" Gibbs asked, pushing a pad of paper across to her. She looked both puzzled and alarmed, but she wrote the name and number down. "Weight training, huh?" Gibbs said while she did that. "How much can you press?"

"About three hundred," she said.

Gibbs nodded. "Must have come in handy on Tuesday night."

Again there was a flash of alarm. "I don't know what you mean."

"You don't?" Gibbs tilted his head. "Hmm . . . go on with your day."

"That's it," she said, shrugging. "Trish and I went to a movie and stopped for a bite afterwards, and then I went home and went to bed."

"Did you go out during the night?" She shook her head. "Did Mike call you?"

She nodded. "Around seven he called and . . ." She rolled her eyes. "He's kind of a romantic."

Tony glanced at Ziva. He wouldn't have pegged Travers for a romantic. Ziva shrugged.

"So he called to . . . what?"

"To tell me he loves me. Just sweet talking."

"And is that the only time you heard from him on Tuesday night?" She nodded. "And Wednesday morning?"

"I didn't hear from him at all on Wednesday morning."

"Where was your cell phone that night?"

"On my nightstand."

He looked through the papers he'd brought in with him. "I have cell phone records here that show him calling you at 0213."

"That would be 2:13 in the morning?" she asked. He nodded. "I had the ringer turned off."

"The records show a fifteen minute call."

"He must have left one hell of a long voice mail message, then."

"You haven't checked your voice mail since Wednesday morning?"

She blinked at him. "I . . . what are you trying to say?"

Gibbs shook his head. "Nothing, I'm just trying to clarify things. So, you're saying you didn't answer the call he made at 0213 on Wednesday morning?"

"Yes, I'm saying that."

"So, if you haven't checked your voice mail, then his message should still be on there. Can I hear it?"

"It's private," she said, shaking her head.

"It could be relevant to an NCIS investigation. I could get a warrant, but it would look better if you gave it to me yourself."

She stared at him, and Tony could see the wheels turning in her mind. A subpoena would just reveal the fact that there was no such message, and he'd lay odds that McGee could find that out for sure. "Okay, I talked to him, but he was talking crazy," she said. "I didn't want to get him in trouble."

"What was he saying?"

"It was all about how one of his co-workers had figured out he was doing something wrong and had called him on it. He was freaked out and said he had to do something about it."

"And now we have the blaming of the accomplice," Tony murmured. "Like clockwork." Ziva shot him a grin.

"Do what?" Gibbs asked.

"He didn't say. He was just rambling."

"What did his co-worker catch him doing?"

"This embezzling stuff, I guess," she said. "I don't know, I wasn't involved."

"Really?" Gibbs pulled out some papers. "Are you familiar with MCA Investments?" From there it went rapidly downhill for Ferguson. Gibbs roped her firmly to the embezzlement scheme, and she finally admitted to it. She seemed to think they were done, but Gibbs shook his head. "As it happens, you were misinformed as to why we wanted to talk to you," he said.

"What do you mean?" she asked, her brows drawing together.

"When Mike called you on Tuesday night, did he tell you who the co-worker was?"

She nodded. "Gabe. I met him once. A regular boy scout. I knew there was no way we could buy him off."

"I see, and you said earlier that Mike told you something had to be done about it?"

"He said he was going to do something about it," she corrected.

"What did he say he was going to do?"

"He didn't. Just that he had to do something, but the guy committed suicide, didn't he? And you guys found out all about it anyway, so I guess it doesn't matter."

"Actually, Agent Maitland did not commit suicide," Gibbs said.

"But Mike said . . . wait, you're not saying that Mike killed him?"

Gibbs shook his head. "No, I'm saying that you killed him. You wouldn't trust something like that to Mike. You just said it takes a woman to get the real work done."

"You're crazy! If that guy was murdered, then Mike did it."

Ziva chuckled. "You were a little early."

Tony shrugged. "She was laying the groundwork. Not very bright, is she?"

Gibbs shuffled out another piece of paper. "Mike was at home in bed when Agent Maitland was killed," Gibbs said. "You, however, were not."

"You can't prove that!" she replied, which was a damning admission, but might not hold up in court.

Ziva glanced over at Tony. "It amazes me that with so many crime dramas on your television telling everyone what not to do, people still get caught."

"Maybe she's not much of a TV watcher," Tony suggested.

Gibbs looked down at his papers. "I have a photograph of you running the red light at McClellan and Fremont at 0432," he said.

"D'oh!" Tony said. "That's a $233.00 fine."

"It also puts her within three blocks of the murder scene at the right time," Ziva pointed out.

"I know, I was just . . ." He shook his head. "Did McGee find that?"

"He did."

Gibbs had kept going while they talked, and Ferguson was answering a question. "I wasn't out. Your photograph is wrong."

"It clearly shows your license plate number, and the shot of you isn't too bad either," Gibbs said, handing it to her.

She changed tactics hastily. "So what, I took a drive because I couldn't sleep."

"You took a drive that put you within three blocks of Gabriel Maitland's house?" Gibbs asked.

"Coincidence."

"What did he do when you knocked on the door?" Gibbs asked.

"I didn't go there," she said desperately.

"Did he invite you in? Offer you a drink? Was he already in bed?"

"I didn't –"

"You know what the first thing I noticed on walking into that house was? Photographs of two little girls on every wall. Did you notice that?"

"I didn't go in the house!" she said. "I never got past the garage!"

"So what did happen?" Gibbs asked, betraying no emotion at the sudden admission.

She blinked uncertainly. "Um . . . the garage door was open when I got there. I went up and he was putting oil into the car parked inside."

"At that hour of the night?"

"I don't know why!" she exclaimed. "I was surprised, but it made it easy. I didn't have to knock or anything. I just went in."

"What did you say?"

"I asked him not to tell anyone what he found, I asked him not to rat on Mike."

"And what did he say?"

"That he had to play the hand he was dealt, like that meant something. He was going to put Mike and me in prison, and he was talking like it was a game of cards." Gibbs didn't say anything, but she didn't seem to notice. "There was a toolbox open on the workbench. I grabbed the first wrench on top and hit him with it. He'd just closed the hood, and he went down like . . ." She shook her head. "I closed the garage door and . . . he was dead already, so I figured I would stage it up like a suicide and no one would ever know."

Gibbs shook his head. "He wasn't dead," he said.

Her jaw went slack briefly, then she shook her head. "He was. I . . . I know he was!"

"The medical examiner says he died of carbon monoxide poisoning." She continued to protest, but Gibbs stood up. "We're done."

She sat staring at the chair Gibbs had vacated as he left the room. Tony glared at her through the mirrored glass. Gabe deserved better than to be killed by an incompetent idiot. He replayed that sentence in his head and grimaced. Like a competent idiot would have been better.

The door behind him opened, and he turned to see Gibbs coming into the room. "Ziva, can you take care of processing her?"

"Absolutely, Gibbs."

"DiNozzo, with me."

Startled, Tony followed him out of the room. "Boss, where are we going?" he asked as they got on the elevator.

"Home."

"Oh." Tony got a vivid image of his bed, which beat his desk all hollow as a surface for sleeping on. Unfortunately, that brought up a flash of Brody pinning him down on it, and he twitched involuntarily at the memory. "Sounds good," he said in a voice that sounded not too strangled. He hoped.

"Yeah, you sound thrilled, DiNozzo."

"Look, Boss, with the new locks, couldn't I go to my place?" It was the last place he wanted to go, but he hated putting Gibbs out.

"Tired of my place already?"

"Boss, you don't own a DVD player," Tony pointed out.

"Is that your measure of a decent place to stay, DiNozzo? Whether or not you can watch movies?"

"Isn't it everybody's?" Tony asked, quirking a grin at his boss.

"No, DiNozzo. Grab your stuff and let's get out of here."

Tony did as he was told, walking out to Gibbs' truck. He couldn't help glancing around to see if he could see Brody, but surely he'd gotten tired and gone home by now. After all, he had to go to work eventually.

"Don't worry, DiNozzo, I'll take a shortcut home."

Tony turned to him sharply. "That really isn't necessary, boss."

"Get in the truck, DiNozzo."


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

The trip to Gibbs' place wasn't nearly as hair raising as he'd expected. In fact, he slept most of the way there. He woke up at a stop light about a mile from Gibbs' house, and sat up, stretching carefully so as not to awaken his aches into full pain. He glanced behind them almost automatically. If Gibbs had taken a shortcut, it certainly hadn't involved bouncing over furrows or dodging trees. He didn't think he'd have slept through that. It took him till they pulled up in front of the house to realize what Gibbs' suggestion had implied. "I wasn't worried he was going to follow us," Tony said.

"No, DiNozzo?"

"No," Tony said. "If he wants to know where you live, all he has to do is ask around." Tony thought about that fact and bit his lip. "In fact, Boss, maybe I should just go home anyway," he said, gazing up at Gibbs' house. He didn't want Brody coming here to harass him.

"How?" Gibbs asked prosaically. He got out of the truck and headed for the front door. Tony followed him unwillingly.

"I could call a cab," he suggested.

"You don't have any keys for your apartment, and it's four in the morning. No one's going to be at your building manager's office for another four hours at least."

Tony blinked. "When you put it like that," he muttered, glumly dropping his pack on the floor by the door.

"Besides, you have a promise to keep," Gibbs said, walking straight through the kitchen.

"What promise, Boss?" Tony asked uncertainly. Gibbs went down the stairs, and Tony trailed after him. What had his big mouth gotten him into this time? Surely he hadn't promised to help with the boat while he was drunk last night.

"You said if I let you work the case, you'd tell me what happened between you and Brody when we were done," Gibbs said, picking up his hand plane and gazing at the ribs of the boat.

"I . . . I did, didn't I?" Tony said, wondering what he had been thinking. "Well, technically, the case isn't over, Boss," he said.

Gibbs turned to him, eyebrows going up. "It's not?" he asked.

Tony gulped. "Well, the paperwork hasn't all been done, and no reports have been filed, and . . . there's the trial . . .?"

"To all intents and purposes, the case is done, DiNozzo," Gibbs said. "Talk." That was a command Tony could follow with a great deal of ease. He opened his mouth, but before he could utter a syllable, Gibbs raised the index finger of his right hand. "Talk about what happened between you and Brody."

Tony's mouth clamped shut and he looked away. "Boss . . ."

"You made the offer, DiNozzo."

Tony dropped his chin to his chest in defeat. He didn't think Gibbs would take the excuse that he'd made that promise while he wasn't thinking clearly. After all, Gibbs knew damned well that he wouldn't have said anything like that if he had been thinking clearly. "So, everything about the incident in the garage today," he said, biting his lip. Again the tenderness surprised him and he stopped.

Gibbs had gone back to working, but at this remark he looked up again. "Everything everything, DiNozzo."

"We were talking about the incident today, Boss," Tony pointed out. If Gibbs could pick nits, so could he. "You were pushing me to get examined, I unglued about . . . stuff, and then I said I'd tell you what happened. It was about the incident today."

Gibbs eyes narrowed, but after a moment or so, he shrugged. "Fine, DiNozzo. Tell me what happened today, and that includes whatever the hell it was you dreamed about."

A claim not to remember the dream would not work on Gibbs. Tony glanced around, looking for the bottle he'd left down here. "Where's my rum?"

Gibbs looked around. "You know, I'm really not sure. I think there's some beer in the fridge, though."

One look at Gibbs' expression told him he was getting no further on that subject. "Want one?" Tony asked.

"Sure."

Tony went upstairs and grabbed a couple of beers and the cold pizza from the fridge. Beer on an empty stomach made for bad digestion later, and Tony had enough problems right now. He offered Gibbs the pizza, but the other man just shook his head. Tony settled down and watched Gibbs work.

It took almost ten minutes for Gibbs to stop, take a drink, and give him an appraising look. "Anytime now, DiNozzo," he said.

Tony swallowed his bite a little too hastily and had to take a big gulp of beer, which coincidentally emptied the bottle. "Back in a minute, Boss."

He came back with three bottles, a second one for Gibbs and a third for him for later. This was probably a good six beers story at least. Gibbs glanced at the beers, glanced at his face and said, "You ready now?"

"Not in the least, but I'm not going to be."

"So, this afternoon, you said you were caught out in a vulnerable spot. Start there."

Tony nodded. "I . . . I met Chuck at a coffee bar downtown, but there wasn't any street parking. I had to park in the garage on eleventh. I found a spot close to the elevator, in a sort of niche beside the elevator." Using his hands to indicate positions, he said, "Elevator, car, car, pillar, my car, wall." Gibbs nodded. "When I came back from the coffee bar, Brody was waiting by the end of my car. I really had no choice. I wasn't going to try and explain to the motor pool why I'd left the car behind, and he'd already seen me when I saw him, so . . ." He shrugged. "I walked on over and tried to get him to just leave me alone by telling him that a friend had just died and we'd caught the case, but . . ." He shook his head. "I walked past him, but instead of letting me go, he . . ." Tony paused and took a long swig. He didn't speak for awhile.

"He grabbed you?" Gibbs prompted.

Tony rested his head carefully against the wall and closed his eyes. "Yeah. He grabbed me." His gut boiled with sour anger, remembering that moment. "I couldn't stop him. He just dragged me around behind the pillar, where no one could see us, and . . ." He clenched his teeth. How could he say any of what had happened next aloud, much less to Gibbs?

When the silence had dragged on too long, Gibbs said, "DiNozzo?"

"Yeah Boss?" Tony said, opening his eyes and looking up at him.

"What next?"

Tony drank the last of one beer and opened another, trying to pretend he didn't notice the way his hands were shaking. "Next? I told him he was crazy and that I had to go. He didn't listen. He just shoved me against the pillar and . . . and . . . and he asked how I got out of my building without him seeing me this . . ." He snorted. "Yesterday morning, I guess it is now."

"Yeah," Gibbs said. "What did you tell him?"

"To stop following me," Tony replied. "He says he followed us to Annapolis, but I would have thought Ziva would have noticed that." Though, come to think of it, she'd been paying a lot of attention to him for the first part of the trip.

"I would have, too."

"But he knew we went to Annapolis, regardless," Tony said. "I told him – for maybe the fiftieth or sixtieth time – that we're done."

"I'm sure that met with his approval," Gibbs said dryly.

"Not exactly. He informed me that no one walks away from him, and that he decides when we're done."

"So far all of this is talking," Gibbs observed. "He pinned you to a wall so he could talk to you?"

"Actually, up to that point all he did was immobilize me and spout. I . . . I tried to get away then and proved just how ineffectual I am against him. He expected the knee to the groin tactic and avoided it. I started to . . . I reached for my piece."

"You were going to draw your weapon on him, and you want to handle it yourself?" Gibbs exclaimed, looking at Tony like he thought he was crazy.

Tony shook his head emphatically. "I wasn't going to draw, it was . . . I don't know, instinct. Shooting him wouldn't solve anything, unfortunately. All it would do is give the papers something to write about."

"What did he do?"

"He . . . we fought. I didn't have much effect." Tony didn't quite know what to say after that.

Gibbs looked up from his woodworking. "DiNozzo, this is like pulling teeth."

"For me, too, Boss," Tony said honestly.

Gibbs chuckled, but he showed no signs of relenting. "And then?"

"I . . . he . . . Boss!"

Gibbs sat down on his straight back chair and gazed at Tony with sympathy. "I could guess. Then you'd just have to tell me if I got it right or wrong."

The very thought was enough to send Tony's gut twisting. He took a deep breath and plunged on. "He tried to kiss me. I avoided it, and . . . well, you know he groped. You were there when I told Ducky."

Gibbs nodded. "Yeah, I was there, but . . ." Gibbs stood up again and started sanding the boat ribs. "It wasn't just your butt he groped, was it?"

Tony closed his eyes. "No, it wasn't." Silence stretched between them. That was pretty much all the details that counted.

After awhile, Gibbs cleared his throat. "How did you two meet?"

Tony looked up at him, startled. "That's outside the realm of what I agreed to talk about."

"I know." Gibbs went quiet, his usual strategy for stubborn interviewees, and Tony sighed.

Shaking his head, he shrugged. "I was trolling for a . . . a meaningless encounter." Gibbs raised an eyebrow but didn't say anything. "And I got in over my head."

"We know that."

"No, I mean . . ." Tony flushed. "I mean I was in real trouble, Gibbs."

Gibbs sat back again and gazed soberly at him. "What are you saying, Tony?"

"There were three of them . . . I don't do groups." Tony shrugged again, suppressing the memory the best he could while talking about it. "I don't know how far they were going to take it, but it had gone plenty far enough when Brody put a stop to it."

"Brody stopped –"

"He's a cop, Gibbs, not a rapist."

Gibbs blinked at him. "What would you say if I told you that you talk in your sleep?"

Tony froze. He'd been asleep . . . no. "I'd say you're full of shit."

"You did, DiNozzo," Gibbs said.

"That's crap, Boss. I do not talk in my sleep."

"Maybe not normally, but . . ." Tony looked up at him. He never could read Gibbs. If he'd talked while he slept in the office, he was going to die of shame. Gibbs seemed to read his thoughts. "In the truck, DiNozzo. All you did on your desk was snore."

"What did I say?" he asked uneasily.

Gibbs didn't speak for a long moment, then he shrugged. "Why don't you just tell me about the dream?"

Tony looked at the pair of beer bottles he had next to him. "Want some more?" he asked.

"Sure, but it's not getting you out of talking."

"Of course not." Tony grabbed the empty bottles from the workbench and took them all upstairs to dump in the recycling bin and took the last two beers out of the six pack and threw away the cardboard carton. It was impossible to be messy at Gibbs' house. No matter how hard Tony tried, he couldn't manage it.

Downstairs again, he handed a beer to Gibbs. "Ziva does not hear about this, and neither does McGee."

"Whatever you say, DiNozzo."

Tony sat back down and took a swallow. The beer wasn't mellowing him much tonight. Of course, there was a lot of adrenaline and bad mood to mellow. "I don't remember dreaming in the truck," he said.

"Maybe not, but the dream in the office has to have been a doozy. You looked . . . shattered."

Tony moistened his lips and tried to figure out how to explain this. "You've got to understand, it was always a kind of . . . he was somewhat controlling from the start. It's embarrassing, but I was sort of looking for that. I didn't want to . . . I'd spent so much time . . . I can't put it into words."

"I get it, DiNozzo."

Tony stared at him for a moment. Maybe he did. "So then . . . it was pretty no holds barred. I wasn't interested in . . . God, this is hard to talk about with you."

"You already made it pretty clear that it was rough sex, DiNozzo," Gibbs said. "But I don't get the feeling there was any real bondage."

"Euw," Tony said. "No."

"Okay. Rough sex, a little domineering, got it." Tony flushed and opened his mouth. "You don't need to make excuses, DiNozzo. There's nothing wrong with any of that." Tony scowled at his feet. "The dream?"

"You remember the Fargo case, Boss? With the –"

"Yeah," Gibbs said quickly, and Tony nodded. It had been an unpleasant, sordid situation. The less said about it, the better. "I just wanted to go home and watch some Bond and pretend the world away, only Brody was there."

"Was it a planned meeting?"

"No, he would just show up, sometimes. Usually he made it clear he was there from the moment I got home, but sometimes he'd surprise me. That night he surprised me."

"And?" Tony grimaced miserably and looked away. "DiNozzo?"

Tony sighed, hating the necessity of explaining. Without meeting Gibbs' eyes, he said, "I wasn't in the mood, he was, and he didn't particularly care how I felt about it."

"So he –"

"I just stopped protesting," Tony said quickly, not wanting to hear what Gibbs had to say. He didn't think too hard about why, but he didn't want Gibbs to say the next word. "He got his way." He pulled his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms around them and looking down at his hands.

Gibbs had broken off when Tony interrupted. Now he walked over and squatted down in front of where Tony sat on the floor, tapping Tony on the knee. "Did you say no, DiNozzo?"

"What of it?" Tony said, still not meeting Gibbs' eyes.

"Did you say no?"

"Yes, I said no."

"What did he do?"

"I didn't push back hard enough," Tony said, feeling like he was fighting a losing battle, but not altogether sure against what. "I stopped struggling."

"You were struggling?"

"Boss, I don't . . . it's not –"

"It's not what?" Gibbs asked gently when Tony didn't finish his sentence.

"It's not what you think."

"I think you said no and he ignored it," Gibbs said

Tony swallowed uncomfortably. "Okay, that's basically true."

"And if that happened to Abby –"

"I'd kill the son of a bitch!" Tony growled. "But it's not the same."

"Why not?"

"Because she's not trained to defend herself, Gibbs, and she wouldn't have led the guy to think that pushing her around was okay. She wouldn't have given him the impression that she wanted to be forced."

Gibbs didn't respond immediately, and Tony wished he could unsay it all. Finally, his boss tilted his head. "Did you ever say no when you didn't mean it?" he asked.

"No, I'm not an idiot," Tony said.

"Did you say no more than once?"

Tony scowled. "Gibbs, that isn't the point. I must have made him think somehow that I wanted him to be like that. He wouldn't have just . . . something I said, something I did, something gave him the wrong impression."

* * *

Gibbs wanted to shoot Brody and strangle Jenny. If she hadn't assumed she knew enough about DiNozzo to handle him in an op like the one with Jeanne, he wouldn't be in this mess now. If she'd only asked him first – but then he hit a brick wall. He hadn't been around to ask. If he hadn't selfishly left NCIS, left Tony, left all of them behind, Jenny would have asked his advice. She wasn't stupid even if she was cocksure and arrogant. He would have been able to head off the worst of that situation before it happened.

Regardless, that was then, this was now, and he had to get DiNozzo out of this self-flagellating mood. "Sometimes a jackass is just a jackass, DiNozzo. Just because he got you out of a mess with a trio of bastards, it doesn't make him a saint."

"I know that," Tony said irritably. He seemed to be getting sleepy again, and the beer was encouraging that. Gibbs wasn't above taking advantage.

"Did you say no more than once?" he asked again.

Tony shook his head. "You mean that time?"

A bomb of fury exploded behind Gibbs' eyes, but he kept it off his face with an effort. In a calm, even tone, he said, "Yeah, that time."

"Sure, several times. He told me to shut up."

Gibbs pursed his lips. "How many times did he not take no for an answer?"

DiNozzo considered the question briefly, then shrugged. "Don't know," he said. "Where's the rum?"

Gibbs reached out and pulled it from behind the toolbox and handed Tony a mug. He went back work on the boat. Somewhere, in some database, there had to be record of the bastard's address. McGee would be able to find it.

* * *

Author's Note: More soon!


End file.
